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CPSP has become a health priority and has been included in the International Classification of Diseases 11th Revision (ICD-11), due to the joint efforts of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP). 1
It is our ambition to reverse the chronic nature of pain for these patients or to prevent the development of chronic post-surgical pain in patients that undergo surgery.
We therefore see a need for:
CPSP, also known as post-operative pain, is a complex disorder in which pain develops or increases in intensity following a surgical procedure and does not dissipate for at least several months.1 The painful symptoms often relate to the distribution of nerves in the area of the surgery, and therefore the type of pain can depend on the operation itself.2
CPSP is a common complication of surgery, affecting up to 30% of adults undergoing surgical procedures.3 The prevalence of CPSP is estimated at 55 million people across the US and EU, with approximately 2 million new cases per year.4-10 Patient factors and surgical characteristics affect the risk of developing acute post-surgical pain. Risk factors for CPSP include female gender, psychosocial issues, perioperative pain and type of surgical trauma.4-10 Neuropathic pain post-surgery is particularly high in operations such as amputation, hernia repair and mastectomy.11
The management of CPSP is split into two approaches: prevention and treatment.12 Prevention techniques focus on the surgical procedure and include interventions such as regional anaesthesia and pre-emptive analgesia, although there is controversy regarding their effectiveness.12 Treatment for CPSP is complex because of the highly heterogeneous patient group; several pharmaceutical therapies are suggested for treatment, but their long-term benefits are questionable.
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