Regional Analgesia and Acute Pain Management: Major Leaps in Small Steps?

Regional Analgesia and Acute Pain Management: Major Leaps in Small Steps?:
Management of pain has evolved steadily over the past few years thanks to the knowledge derived from a large number of basic science and clinical research studies. While the management of chronic pain has utilized a significant amount of information from this research, acute pain management has benefited to a lesser extent. Our mainstay of therapy for acute pain remains opioid based, but we have realized that opioid drugs do a less-than-optimal job of relieving activity-associated pain in many acute scenarios. We have also realized the downside to using opioids as we see more and more patients with opioid tolerance, opioid-induced hyperalgesia, and immunosupression.