Stratification of neuropathic pain patients: the road to mechanism-based therapy?

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: It has been demonstrated that within one pain entity, patients may report highly heterogenic sensory signs and symptoms. Although mechanism might differ fundamentally between those patients, yet the treatment recommendations are uniform throughout all phenotypes. Therefore, the introduction of new stratification tools could pave the way to an individualized pain treatment.

RECENT FINDINGS: In the past, retrospective stratifications of patients successfully identified responders to certain pharmacological treatments. This indicated predictive validity and reliability of this classification tool in those patient subgroups. Further on, these observations have been confirmed in prospective studies.

SUMMARY: This review focusses on recent achievements in neuropathic pain and suggests a promising implementation of an individualized pharmacological therapy in the future.