The normal practice after someone has undergone a surgical procedure has been to administer anti-inflammatory medications. However, new research conducted at Michigan State University (MSU) suggests that this could be counterproductive and may be the reason why some patients develop chronic pain that lasts for years after their surgery.
The study found that allowing inflammation to happen naturally expedited the recovery process after injury or surgery and that pain ceased a lot faster if inflammation wasn’t blocked.
Associate Professor Geoffroy Laumet, the senior author of the study, explains that the research team was surprised when they found that blocking inflammation in mice resulted in prolonged pain, which was counter to what had been expected.
The team conducted their tests on mice and sought to find out what would happen if a key signaling molecule within the immune system was blocked in some mice that had an incision made to simulate surgery, and that same TNF-a molecule wasn’t blocked in other mice subjected to a similar injury that mimicked a surgical procedure.
Laumet and the team had thought that blocking that immune system molecule would help to reduce pain, but the opposite happened. The mice experienced pain for a longer duration. Laumet initially thought this finding was a glitch and asked other team members to conduct the same experiment. Their findings were consistent with what he had found. The mice that hadn’t had the TNF-a molecule blocked recovered faster and their pain resolved much sooner, unlike those that had the immune molecule blocked.
About 10% of the approximately 40 million individuals who undergo surgery in America develop chronic pain after their procedures. This means that about 4 million people develop chronic pain post-surgery. This pain resists treatment and many experience it for several years.
The preclinical study’s finding therefore has major ramifications since the study suggests that allowing the body to trigger its inflammatory response after a surgical procedure could be a vital step to resolving pain and expediting healing.
The study authors are quick to point out that their findings don’t suggest that administering anti-inflammatory drugs after surgery should stop. This is because many molecules in the body play a part in healing, pain and inflammation.
Until those different molecules are understood, it will not be possible to know with certainty which ones can be blocked without compromising the healing and pain resolution process. Some patients actually benefit from having their TNF-a molecules blocked, such as those with rheumatoid arthritis or those suffering from arthritic inflammation.
With companies like Soligenix Inc. (NASDAQ: SNGX) also involved in research aimed at developing therapies against inflammation, more insights on when it is prudent to block this process in the body or let it happen naturally could emerge.
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