News

It seems like new legislation related to opioids and pain management is introduced in Congress every day. Numerous bills are being considered in the House and Senate.

There will soon be an NIH study section dedicated to the review of basic science grants on Pain. At the March 26 Advisory Council meeting, the Center for Scientific Review formally chartered the Somatosenosry and Pain Systems (SPS) Study Section. We are very appreciative to the Center for Scientific Review for hearing the voices of pain scientists, who have long hoped for a dedicated Study Section to help improve the quality of peer review of Pain grants submitted to the NIH. CSR is now working on implementation of the SPS study section with a target of having it in place for the January 2019 Council round (grant reviews occurring in fall, 2018).

The 2018 National Rx Drug Abuse and Heroin Summit, National Institutes of Health Director Francis S. Collins, MD, PhD, announced the launch of the HEAL (Helping to End Addiction Long-term) Initiative, an aggressive, trans-agency effort to speed scientific solutions to stem the national opioid public health crisis.

APS commends Congress for bipartisan passage of the 2018 Omnibus Spending Bill, which gives the National Institutes of Health an 8.8% budget increase, its largest in 15 years. The bill authorizes $500 million for research on opioid addiction, new alternative pain treatments, and pain management.

Medicare is putting into place on April 2nd a rule that will deny payment for long-term, high-dose opioid prescriptions. The change is designed to limit opioid addiction risks, but many patients, patient advocates, physicians and scientists oppose the move as arbitrary and harmful.

Lawmakers concluded that the research community was not adequately consulted about this change and that the policy could have "long-term unintended consequences," including unnecessary regulations and the inappropriate inclusion of non-clinical trials in NIH's clinicaltrials.gov database.

Researchers have encapsulated natural opioid peptides in a nanopolymer matrix for nasal spray delivery to the brain. The drug blocked pain with no tolerance, suggesting a new and important potential way to fight pain with reduced side effects.

A new social media tool kit from the American Medical Association can help healthcare providers share stories about obstacles experienced by their patients experience when seeking care for pain and/or substance use. Providers can add their voices to calls for improved access to comprehensive, multidisciplinary care for pain, and high quality, evidence-based treatment for substance use disorders.

News from the American Pain Society Scientific Summit

Although impressive scientific evidence shows that pain self-management programs based on cognitive-behavioral therapies (CBT) are effective, they would have greater utility and impact if simplified appropriately for persons with below average literacy skills and impaired cognitive function, according to a leading pain psychologist speaking at the American Pain Society Scientific Summit here.

News from the American Pain Society Scientific Summit

Greater understanding of complex, underlying pain mechanisms, which are different in most pain patients, holds promise to improve the quality and precision of clinical pain assessments and help foster successful treatment outcomes.

News from the American Pain Society Scientific Summit

Reliance on behavioral indicators, such as crying, to assess pain in infants underestimates how much pain babies actually feel when they undergo stressful medical procedures.

News from the American Pain Society Scientific Summit

Chronic pain after surgery is a major health problem but little is known about individual pain experiences and how and why pain usually resolves.

APS is pleased to announce the introduction of the GF Gebhart Journal of Pain Early Career Investigator Award!

President David A. Williams, PhD, expresses disappointment with the McCaskill report.

Sleep quality partially mediates the relationship between post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and pain in children and adolescents, according to new research reported in The Journal of Pain.

Several health organizations, including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, have recommended dose reduction and risk mitigation strategies to reduce adverse events for patients on chronic opioid therapy. A new study published in The Journal of Pain reports that patients with chronic pain treated in centers with opioid-dose reduction policies show no clinically meaningful differences in pain intensity, interference with daily activities, enjoyment of life, or depressive symptoms.

APS has changed the format for its 2018 conference to a Scientific Summit titled "Understanding Pain Mechanisms." The event is March 4-6 at the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim. The conference brings together leading pain researchers and clinicians to explore biopsychosocial mechanisms that influence pain perception and treatment response discovered through clinical, translational and basic science pain research.

U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawai'i) and U.S. Representatives Peter Welch (D-Vt.) and David McKinley (R-W.V.) introduced the Opioids and STOP Pain Initiative Act, legislation that establishes a new large-scale initiative at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to expand research on opioid misuse, the understanding of pain, and the discovery of non-addictive, non-opioid alternatives to treat and prevent pain.

This article describes in general the role that the support cells of the brain, glia, play in initiating and maintaining chronic pain. This includes neuroinflammation, damage signaling, and the promise of glia-targeted therapies to treat chronic pain.

Pfizer and Lilly are collaborating to provide grant support for continuing professional education in the area of pain. A call for grant applications is open and the due date is January 25.