Epidemiology of Chronic Postsurgical Pain

Chronic postsurgical pain has a global incidence of 30 %, while surgery is the second commonest cause of neuropathic pain. The operations most commonly implicated in chronic postsurgical pain are inguinal hernia repair, breast surgery, amputation, cholecystectomy and thoracotomy. Possible risk factors are the existence of preoperative pain, psychological characteristics of the patient, certain aspects of surgical technique and intense postoperative pain. The recommendations formally set out by experts for the management of postoperative pain include an assessment of the incidence of chronic postsurgical pain and suggest ways of predicting and preventing it.