Gene therapy applications for the treatment of neuropathic pain

Neuropathic pain is notoriously difficult to treat; currently available pharmaceutical drugs result in moderate analgesia in approximately a third of patients. As our understanding of the biological processes involved in the establishment and maintenance of neuropathic pain increases, so does the development of novel treatment options. Significant advancements have been made in the past few years in gene transfer, a very powerful potential therapy that can be used to directly target affected areas of the neuraxis or body tissues involved in neuropathic pain. Candidate gene products include directly analgesic proteins as well as proteins that interfere with pain-associated biochemical changes in nerve or other tissues underlying the disease process.