Bedside testing for precision pain medicine.

Area of Science:

• Pain research and personalized medicine.
• Clinical trial stratification methodologies.

Background:

• Identifying therapy responders is a key focus in pain research.
• Laboratory quantitative sensory testing (lab-QST) has identified predictive patient subgroups but is costly and time-consuming for clinical use.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review recently developed bedside testing approaches for patient stratification.
• To explore the potential of these tools in clinical trials for individualized pain medicine.

Main Methods:

• Development of easy-to-use bedside testing protocols as alternatives to lab-QST.
• Utilizing patient-reported outcome measures for symptom-based patient subgrouping.
• Evaluating the potential of these combined approaches for predicting treatment response.

Main Results:

• Bedside testing protocols and patient-reported outcomes show promise in stratifying patients.
• These methods can identify pathophysiologically plausible subgroups predictive of treatment response.
• Initial results suggest these approaches are viable alternatives for clinical application.

Conclusions:

• Recently developed bedside approaches can serve as stratification tools in clinical trials.
• Future studies should integrate questionnaires and sensory testing for prospective validation.
• These methods are complementary to, rather than replacements for, existing techniques in advancing individualized pain medicine.