Matching Disease Mechanisms With Interventions

The clinical ideal is to match known, objectively identified mechanisms of disease with the known mechanisms of an intervention (drug or nondrug). Of course, we are far from this ideal as our knowledge of disease mechanisms is very elementary in some cases, especially in pain, and our knowledge of drug mechanisms is rudimentary, and our knowledge of how nondrug interventions actually work is almost nil. In this course we will discuss recent progress in regards to identifying clinically significant mechanisms/pathophysiology, especially by more objective testing and biomarkers, as juxtaposed with our spare knowledge of drug mechanisms (eg, pharmacodynamics, neuropharmacology), as well as discuss some of the hypothetical mechanisms of nondrug interventions. (Recorded at PAINWeek 2018)