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Gene therapy may ease painDate: 22/1/2008 9:25:12 AM
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A treatment using gene therapy could revolutionise pain relief, according to a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Patients experiencing chronic pain are usually prescribed painkillers that do not always work and that often cause severe side-effects.
Researchers at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York have been developing a technology involving a spinal injection of a gene that triggers the body's natural pain relief - endorphins.
"Chronic pain patients often do not experience satisfactory pain relief from available treatments due to poor efficacy or intolerable side-effects like extreme sleepiness, mental clouding and hallucinations," said Andreas Beutler, assistant professor of medicine, haematology and medical oncology.
"Targeted gene therapy will likely avoid the unwanted side-effects associated with opiod painkillers such as morphine," he claimed.
Cancer Research UK welcomed the research, describing the concept as "interesting".
However, the charity noted that the work has only been carried out using animals and will therefore require much more research.
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