緒言とまとめ

Recent Topics of Chronic Pain Patients：Preface and Comments

　わが国では慢性疼痛を有する患者は約2,000万人といわれている。慢性疼痛の保有率を年齢別に見ると，10代9.2％，30代12.9％，50代以上15.4％^1）と，年齢を重ねるごとに慢性疼痛の患者は増加している。これを男女別に見ると，女性のほうが慢性疼痛保有率は高くなっている。

　Chronic intractable pain is well known to be very difficult to manage, in part because the mechanisms that underlie this type of pain are quite complex. Moreover, multiple pain mechanisms may be involved in the chronic pain experienced by a single individual, and these individuals may therefore need multiple treatments that have different types of analgesic actions, including pulsed radiofrequency（as an interventional treatment）, light-emitting diode（LED）（light therapy）, and exercise-induced hypoalgesia（EIH）（rehabilitation）. It is thus very important that clinicians conduct an evaluation that considers the many factors that may modulate the behaviour. In addition to chronic pain and its treatment, the following are described herein：the management of patients with chronic/intractable pain；the preoperative assessment and the perioperative risk management of chronic pain in the elderly；nociplastic pain；and socioeconomic outcomes.