Byrner
01-23-2008, 09:57 PM
Many suffer chronic pain which does not respond to treatment
US scientists have developed a gene therapy treatment which they hope could revolutionise pain relief.
Pain vanished for at least three months in rats who were injected in the spine with a gene that triggers endorphins, the body's natural pain killer.
The therapy did not affect the rest of the nervous system, including the brain, potentially preventing the main side-effects of current pain relief.
Studies suggest drugs do not relieve cancer pain in as many as 66% of cases.
The research appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"Chronic pain patients often do not experience satisfactory pain relief from available treatments due to poor efficacy or intolerable side effects like extreme sleepiness, mental clouding and hallucinations," said Andreas Beutler, part of the team who conducted the study at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.
He said that in some circumstances, patients preferred to continue suffering some pain in order to preserve lucidity.
There is also a potential risk of addiction to opiate drugs.
Source: (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7200858.stm)
US scientists have developed a gene therapy treatment which they hope could revolutionise pain relief.
Pain vanished for at least three months in rats who were injected in the spine with a gene that triggers endorphins, the body's natural pain killer.
The therapy did not affect the rest of the nervous system, including the brain, potentially preventing the main side-effects of current pain relief.
Studies suggest drugs do not relieve cancer pain in as many as 66% of cases.
The research appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"Chronic pain patients often do not experience satisfactory pain relief from available treatments due to poor efficacy or intolerable side effects like extreme sleepiness, mental clouding and hallucinations," said Andreas Beutler, part of the team who conducted the study at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.
He said that in some circumstances, patients preferred to continue suffering some pain in order to preserve lucidity.
There is also a potential risk of addiction to opiate drugs.
Source: (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7200858.stm)