Background & Aims
The number of patients suffering from chronic orofacial pain including burning mouth syndrome (BMS) is not negligible. Patients with BMS have pain that occurs without organic abnormalities commensurate with their complaints, and that often accompanied by CNS-derived symptoms such as fatigue and sleep disturbance. These symptoms are similar to nociplastic pain which was relatively newly proposed as the third category of pain distinct from nociceptive pain and neuropathic pain by the International Association for the Study of Pain. The aim of this review was to discuss chronic orofacial pain symptoms from the perspective of not only nociceptive and neuropathic pain but also nociplastic pain.
Methods
A PubMed search was conducted using keywords related to “nociplastic pain”, “dentistry”, “chronic pain” and “orofacial pain”. In addition to the articles obtained from the search, the important references were added from the respective fields of the authors.
Results
The number of studies regarding nociplastic component of chronic pain in dental field is limited, current evidence of chronic orofacial pain, however, suggests nociplastic component may play an important role in the pathology of chronic orofacial pain.
Conclusions
The literature search in this review suggested that most of chronic orofacial pain includes nociplastic pain-like symptoms. Finally, this review shows the future direction of research into nociplastic component in chronic orofacial pain.
References
1. Mary-Ann Fitzcharles, Steven P Cohen, Daniel J Clauw, Geoffrey Littlejohn, Chie Usui, Winfried Häuser:
Nociplastic pain: towards an understanding of prevalent pain conditions.
Lancet. 397(10289):2098-2110, 2021
2. International Classification of Orofacial Pain, 1st edition (ICOP):
Cephalalgia. 40(2 ): 129-221, 2020
3. Takeshi Watanabe, Mette Sieg, Sigrid Juhl Lunde, Pankaj Taneja, Lene Baad-Hansen,
Maria Pigg, Lene Vase:
What is the nocebo effect and does it apply to dentistry? A narrative review.
Journal of Oral Rehabilitation. 49(5): 586-591, 2022.
Presenting Author
Takeshi Watanabe
Poster Authors
Topics
- Specific Pain Conditions/Pain in Specific Populations: Orofacial Pain