Spine Pain Care: Clinical Challenges and Unmet Research Needs

Spine pain refers to pain conditions resulting from spine pathologies including disease, trauma, degeneration, and tumor. Spine pain also includes etiologies related to changes in the structures adjacent to the spine such as sacroiliac joints. Spine pain is a primary cause of loss of productivity and high cost of expensive healthcare. Care for spine pain involves multiple medical specialties and is a major focus of contemporary pain management. Ineffective treatment prolongs the course of spine pain, which contributes to the genesis of chronic spine pain and comorbidities. There are unmet research needs to improve spine pain care and to understand the underlying mechanisms of spine pain.