Translating Genetic Knowledge into Clinical Practice for Musculoskeletal Pain Conditions
This chapter focuses on the genetic factors that contribute to chronic low back pain (LBP), chronic widespread pain (CWP), fibromyalgia (FM), and painful temporomandibular joint disorders (TMD), which collectively represent a set of pain conditions that are highly comorbid and common in the population. The epidemiology of LBP, CWP, FM, and TMD has been fairly well characterized in the general population and Slade and coworkers. The relative importance of genetic factors in human musculoskeletal pain conditions is becoming clearer with reported heritability that is comparable to other common disorders. Although whole-genome association studies (GWAS) are on the horizon for the pain field, at present only genetic association studies using a candidate gene approach have been reported. The power of translating results from human and animal genetic studies is in the ability to identify general molecular pathways contributing to pain processes and thus enabling the discovery of new specific drug targets.
