Gene therapy and chronic pain.

Chronic, unremitting pain is perhaps the most common reason that patients seek medical care. In general, conservative techniques, such as medical management, are implemented as first-line therapy. Local anesthesia and lytic procedures, followed by interventional techniques, such as dorsal column stimulation and intrathecal drug delivery systems, are second-line therapies. However, for refractory and severe pain, which is not adequately controlled by other modes of therapy, new emerging options, including molecular or gene therapy, may become more widely utilized as experimental results are translated into clinical options.