A Conceptual Framework for Prevention of Chronic Postsurgical Pain

Chronic postsurgical pain is one of the most common adverse events of surgery. The pain characteristics can occur as nociceptive pain and neuropathic pain or mixed, creating long-term suffering for patients. At present, there are no techniques for the prevention of this pain. However, anticipation of this condition must be done based on predictive concepts to control the risk factors, such as careful preoperative assessment, adequate perioperative pain management, adjusting surgical techniques that reduce tissue destruction, psychological support, improving physical function, and a multidisciplinary team working. Moreover, patient care needs to be considered individually in conjunction with formulating a patient care plan for each type of surgery. In particular, the International Association for the Study of Pain and the World Health Organization collaborated by establishing a definition of chronic postoperative pain and implemented it in the International Classification of Disease-11 for guidance in the study of prevalence and clinical symptoms. It will improve the strategy for the prevention and treatment of this condition.