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The painful events associated with the treatment of a severe burn can, because of their long-lasting and repetitive characteristics, be one of the most excruciating experiences in clinical practice. Moreover, burn pain has been shown to be detrimental to burn patients. Although nociception and peripheral hyperalgesia are considered the major causes of burn pain, the study of more hypothetical mechanisms like central hyperalgesia and neuropathic pain may lead to a better understanding of burn pain symptoms and to new therapeutic approaches. Continuous pain and intermittent pain due to therapeutic procedures are two distinct components of burn pain. They have to be evaluated and managed separately. Although continuous pain is by far less severe than intermittent pain, the treatment is, in both cases, essentially pharmacological relying basically on opioids. Because of wide intra- and inter-individual variations, protocols will have to leave large possibilities of adaptation for each case, systematic pain evaluation being mandatory to achieve the best risk/benefit ratio. Surprisingly, the dose of medication decreases only slowly with time, a burn often remaining painful for long periods after healing. Non pharmacological treatments are often useful and sometimes indispensable adjuncts; but their rationale and their feasibility depends entirely on previous optimal pharmacological control of burn pain. Several recent studies show that burn pain management is inadequate in most burn centres. |
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