Abstract

Pharmacological treatment of neuropathic pain: present status and future directions

Author(s): Vincenzo Bonicalzi and Sergio Canavero

The pharmacological treatment of neuropathic pain remains unsatisfactory. This is partly owing to poor knowledge of available drugs on the part of treating physicians, but equally important is the poor correlation between animal models and clinical effects. In this review, we survey the field and draw several conclusions, particularly that current results are disappointing and that we are not going to see major progress in the near future if current paradigms are not changed. Also, mechanisms of action of drugs must be better explored in view of a drug dissection-based approach.