ACTION on the Prevention of Chronic Pain after Surgery

Abstract

Editor's note: This series of four editorials arose from a meeting sponsored by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the University of Pennsylvania in October 2009 with a focus on chronic pain after surgery. The editorials describe a new initiative from the FDA to establish a private-public partnership to bring new research and knowledge of study design with the goal of safely accelerating analgesic drug design, a brief review of the woeful lack of research in animal models of persistent pain after surgery, an opinion piece regarding important elements of study design to test therapies to prevent this persistent pain, and a discussion of the magnitude of effect required to be meaningful to patients.