Raising the standards of preclinical pain studies

Abstract

[ A consensus report on the design and reporting of pre-clinical ain studies compiled by a major international pain research conortium is published in this issue of Scandinavian Journal of Pain 1]. This proposed new guideline is more detailed in pain-specific ssues than the present gold standard, the ARRIVE-guideline [2–4], hich is generic for all kinds of preclinical research. The IMIuropain guideline has been initially developed for internal use of he research group, which has decided to follow it in their own ork. I was delighted to find a detailed description of the steps aken in the consensus process in the paper [1]. Now the authors are submitting the guideline for open disussion within the pain research community in general. We can oolishly ignore this initiative, adopt it as it is, or start a discussion hat could lead to an even more refined set of rules of practice. The candinavian Journal of Pain is proud to provide a forum for such iscourse. I hope that in the next journal strategy meeting there ill be a discussion on embracing this guideline as the journal polcy. Admittedly the Scandinavian Journal of Pain is at present not big n experimental pain research, but I’m convinced that as a journal e would be in good company as an early adopter of the guideline. Naturally, like in any recommendation or rule, it may be that ome details or even bigger issues in the guideline may need adjustent. One of the peer-reviewers of this paper, a highly regarded ain researcher and scientist, criticized strongly the brevity of iscussion on the construct validity of the experimental research odels. It is indeed true that measuring wrong things with perfect ethodology and diligence is misleading and useless. The authors f the guideline agree: “we recognize that process quality does not uarantee outcome quality” [1]. Validity of preclinical models used or pain research has been discussed in detail elsewhere [5–9]. If the alidity of the model is acceptable, it should be executed in proper anner, minimizing risk of bias. Additionally, good documentation ay help us to find out if right things have been measured. Trial registers for preclinical trials are proposed to diminish pubication bias from negative experiments that remain unpublished. s Knopp and co-workers admit in the paper, implementation and versight of such a database would be challenging [1]. Indeed, very hallenging, and perhaps less crucial than registering clinical trials.