Pharmacological Management of Neuropathic Pain: Current Trends and Possible Approaches

Abstract

Context: Neuropathic pain (NP) is a chronic debilitating painful condition with complex pathophysiology and inadequate treatment. Conventional pharmacological approaches and currently available drugs only provide marginal pain relief and cause significant adverse effects. The present manuscript is an attempt to summarize the existing data and possible pharmacological approaches available for NP. Evidence Acquisition: Information was collected from Google Scholar, Cochrane and PubMed databases, Scopus and directory of open access journals. Neuropathic pain, chronic pain, diabetic neuropathy, pathophysiology and current recommendations were the terms used to search the literature. Data from relevant animal and randomized controlled studies were selected to get the up to date information of the currently available pharmacological approaches. A note on future approaches was added based on the recent animal and human studies. Results: The current review made a significant attempt to focus on the mode of action, required dosage, advantages and the side effect profiles of currently available drugs used, or in investigational phases and their possible combinations to manage NP. Efforts are made to cover arise of NP because of diabetes and its management. At the end, authors made an attempt to cover the various therapeutic options that are currently explored for future drug development. Conclusions: The available pharmacological approaches are effective on one or other types of chronic pain. But the inadequate pain relief and limitations with each class of drugs raises the need to develop better therapeutic approaches and also understand the pathology better. The present review may be helpful to researchers intending to focus on newer therapeutic strategies and targets to manage NP.