Conceptos actuales en dolor y endometriosis: diagnóstico y manejo del dolor pélvico crónico

Pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience. There are several ways to classify pain. It can be classified according to its temporality, distinguishing acute pain from chronic pain. Chronic pain can be classified according to its pathophysiology as nociceptive, neuropathic, or nociplastic. Most chronic pain will be classified as mixed, because it has characteristics of the three subgroups.

In patients who present chronic pain, we will frequently find peripheral and central sensitization due to a nervous system dysfunction, which, in turn, will explain why these patients have a worse prognosis and worse response to treatments provided. It is necessary to identify these sensitized patients, because they will require specific treatments with a multimodal approach.

In chronic pelvic patients, it is vitally important to perform a good and detailed anamnesis and an extended physical examination, not only focused on the gynaecological sphere, to diagnose the cause of the pain correctly.

Patients with chronic pelvic pain present highly complex pictures. Treatments proposed must be aetiological, for example, when the pain is associated with endometriosis, but we must also treat chronic pain as a disease. Treatments should be multidisciplinary and individualized for each patient and must target central sensitization.