Pharmazentrum Frankfurt/ZAFES, Institut für Klinische Pharmakologie, Klinikum der Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, Theodor Stern Kai 7, 60590 Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Cells. 2020 Oct 1;9(10):2220. doi: 10.3390/cells9102220.
Pain is the most frequent cause triggering patients to visit a physician. The worldwide incidence of chronic pain is in the range of 20% of adults, and chronic pain conditions are frequently associated with several comorbidities and a drastic decrease in patients' quality of life. Although several approved analgesics are available, such therapy is often not satisfying due to insufficient efficacy and/or severe side effects. Therefore, novel strategies for the development of safe and highly efficacious pain killers are urgently needed. To reach this goal, it is necessary to clarify the causes and signal transduction cascades underlying the onset and progression of the different types of chronic pain. The papers in this Special Issue cover a wide variety of mechanisms involved in different pain types such as inflammatory, neuropathic or cancer pain. Therefore, the results summarized here might contribute to a better understanding of the mechanisms in chronic pain and thereby to the development of novel therapeutic strategies for pain patients.
疼痛是导致患者就医的最常见原因。全球范围内，慢性疼痛的发病率在成年人中约为 20%，慢性疼痛状况常伴有多种合并症，并导致患者的生活质量大幅下降。尽管有几种已批准的镇痛药可用，但由于疗效不足和/或严重的副作用，这种治疗往往不尽如人意。因此，迫切需要开发安全且高效的新型止痛药策略。为了实现这一目标，有必要阐明不同类型慢性疼痛发生和进展的原因和信号转导级联。本期特刊中的论文涵盖了不同类型疼痛（如炎症性、神经性或癌性疼痛）中涉及的多种机制。因此，这里总结的结果可能有助于更好地理解慢性疼痛中的机制，并为疼痛患者开发新的治疗策略。
