Little Progress Seen in Treating Chronic Pain

By Nancy Walsh, Staff Writer, MedPage Today Published: June 23, 2011 Reviewed by Dori F. Zaleznik, MD; Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston and Dorothy Caputo, MA, RN, BC-ADM, CDE, Nurse Planner

Treatment of chronic pain today remains strikingly inadequate, despite better understanding of the underlying pathology and an ever-widening range of therapeutics, according to an overview of the literature. For all the treatment modalities surveyed, only about half of treated patients had a response -- and the reduction in pain was only about 30%, reported Dennis C. Turk, MD, and colleagues from the University of Washington in Seattle./.../