![]() ![]() Regardless of the primary etiology, NP can present itself as spontaneous pain sensations such as paroxysmal pain (shooting pain) and superficial pain (burning sensation) or as evoked pain: mechanical/thermal allodynia (pain caused by normally nonpainful mechanical or thermal stimuli), hyperalgesia (increased sensitivity to a normally painful stimulus), or temporal summation (increasing pain sensation from repetitive application of the identical stimulus). The nature of NP is extremely heterogeneous and four main categories of neuropathic lesions have been recognized: focal or multifocal lesions of the peripheral nervous system (PNS), lesions of the central nervous system (CNS), polyneuropathies, and complex neuropathic disorders. Neuropathic pain (NP), currently defined as “pain arising as a direct consequence of a lesion or disease affecting the somatosensory system”, represents the most severe form of chronic pain considering its capacity to affect both physical and mental patient's condition. The overall positive results obtained on pain remission by using stem cells that are safe, of easy isolation, and which may allow an autologous transplant in patients may be encouraging for moving from bench to bedside, although there are several issues that still need to be solved. In this paper we review the preclinical studies produced in the last years assessing the effects induced by several stem cells in different models of neuropathic pain. The original idea was based on the capacity of stem cell to offer a totipotent cellular source for replacing injured neural cells and for delivering trophic factors to lesion site soon the researchers agreed that the capacity of stem cells to contrast NP was not dependent upon their regenerative effect but was mostly linked to a bidirectional interaction between the stem cell and damaged microenvironment resident cells. Several papers have been written on experimental neuropathic pain treatment using stem cells of different origin and species to treat experimental NP. New approaches are therefore needed and research is testing stem cell usage. ![]() All the pharmacological treatments today in use give a long lasting pain relief only in a limited percentage of patients before pain reappears making NP an incurable disease. Neuropathic pain (NP) is a highly invalidating disease resulting as consequence of a lesion or disease affecting the somatosensory system. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |