Plenary Abstracts

Abstract

We have an increasingly robust armoury as to how to stratify neuropathic pain patients according to symptoms, sensory testing and more advanced techniques such as neurophysiology, genetics and functional imaging. These are now being applied at scale both in large collaborative research consortia and in some cases within national health services. In parallel to these technological advances harmonised data collection and storage is enabling advanced multi-modal data analysis and correlation with long term health outcomes. The application of these techniques is helping us to: identify conditions which were not previously understood to have a neuropathic component, identify those individuals at highest risk of neuropathic pain and stratify patients living with neuropathic pain in a clinically meaningful way. I will discuss how these approaches are enhancing our understanding of neuropathic pain with the ultimate goal of not only developing novel treatment strategies but also better targeting of existing treatments to those most likely to respond.