NEUROPATHIC PAIN: REDEFINITION AND A GRADING SYSTEM FOR CLINICAL AND RESEARCH PURPOSES

I read the article by Treede et al.1 with interest. The International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) definition of neuropathic pain—“pain from a lesion or dysfunction of the nervous system”—is inadequate as patients displaying pain behavior and sensorimotor phenomena without demonstrable neuropathophysiology lack evidence of disease. However, the clinical resemblance between patients with and without such evidence has been taken to indicate that both profiles are neuropathic, but the second profile is …