Special section on pain: progress in pain assessment and management

This issue of the British Journal of Anaesthesia has a special section on pain, featuring a number of editorials, reviews and original articles across a range of areas in pain medicine. The last BJA special issue on pain medicine was in July 2013, entitled "Managing pain: recent advances and new challenges", as summarized in the lead editorial of that issue.¹ A similar title could be used for this month's special section. Pain medicine continues to evolve, with advances in acute, chronic and cancer pain understanding and management. However, the challenges remain, and arguably, increase, as our population ages: Pain is one of the biggest causes of disability globally, with musculoskeletal pain being the leading cause of disability in most countries in 2015.²³ Managing pain successfully - acute, chronic or cancer - is an area where there is potential major clinical benefit both at an individual and societal level.

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