Immune-Related Neuropathy

There are many causes of neuropathic pain, as this book illustrates in great detail. The closer we look into these causes, the more researchers are discovering how the immune system contributes to chronic pain. This chapter reviews the most commonly accepted immune-related causes of painful peripheral neuropathy. These fall into four main categories: viral, vasculitis, autoimmune, and paraneoplastic. The review borrows from the texts, journals, and wisdom of colleagues in internal medicine, neurology, and oncology. Despite the fact that these are uncommon subjects for most pain clinicians, they do present in pain clinics. The mechanisms of these related conditions, such as Guillain-Barré syndrome, hepatitis, Sjogren syndrome, and multiple sclerosis, and their treatments have bearing on understanding immune-related causes of painful peripheral neuropathy.