Assessment of risk factors for oro-facial pain and recent developments in classification: implications for management

Oro-facial pain research has during the last decades provided important novel insights into the basic underlying mechanisms, the need for standardised diagnostic procedures and classification systems, and multiple treatment options for successful rehabilitation of the patient in pain. Notwithstanding the significant progress in our knowledge spanning from molecules to chair, there may also be limitations in our ability to integrate and interpret the tremendous amount of new data and information, in particular in terms of the clinical implications and overriding conceptual models for oro-facial pain. The aim of the present narrative review is to briefly summarise some of the current thoughts on oro-facial pain mechanisms and recent attempts to identify biomarkers and risk factors leading to the proposal of a new risk assessment diagram for oro-facial pain (RADOP) and a provocative new concept based on stochastic variation between multiple risk factors. Finally, the implications for novel management strategies will briefly be discussed.