Recent and Emerging Trends in Pharmacotherapy of Neuropathic Pain

Neuropathic pain is a type of chronic pain caused by a lesion or disease of the somatosensory nervous system. The pathophysiology of neuropathic pain is very complex, not fully understood and different from that somatic pain. It has a deleterious effect on health related quality of life, and leads to increased health-care costs and its management is extremely difficult. The response to currently available treatments is less promising, so newer agents with better efficacy and safety are needed. Currently tricyclic antidepressants and anticonvulsants like gabapentin and pregabalin are considered as the 1^st line drugs but these are not able to produce complete relief. Various recent drugs are: high dose capsaicin patch, topical lidocaine, botulinum toxin A, lacosamide, Selective Serotinin Reuptake inhibitorss, NMDA antagonists. Certain new targets like endocannabinoid system and various neurotrophic factors like BDNF, NT3, NT4, and GDNF are undergoing preclinical and clinical trials and their role in the treatment of neuropathic pain is still emerging.