Funding offers hope for chronic pain sufferers

KGHRI clinician scientist Ian Gilron is co-leading a new research network focused on chronic pain. 

Funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research under its Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research (SPOR) program, the  Chronic Pain Network represents the largest and most coordinated effort to advance knowledge and patient care for millions of Canadians suffering from this disease.

“In addition to profound personal suffering, the cost of chronic pain to society across a person’s lifespan is greater than that from cancer and heart disease combined,” Dr. Gilron says. “Canada is recognized as a world leader in pain research productivity and training, and per capita produces twice as many pain related publications as the international leader, the United States. This new Chronic Pain Network represents a unique opportunity to further advance our excellence in pain research and greatly expand research capacity in Canada.”

This Chronic Pain Network will conduct a variety of programs involving laboratory and clinical research studies on chronic pain to identify new treatments to manage and prevent chronic pain. The network will also examine the impact of sex, gender, and ethnic differences on chronic pain and develop more effective communication strategies and health policies to translate new research results into improved health-care outcomes.

Several network activities will be coordinated through Queen’s, led by Dr. Gilron in collaboration with Drs. Nader Ghasemlou, Elizabeth Vandenkerkhof, Scott Duggan and other investigators in the Queen’s Faculty of Health Sciences, the chronic pain clinic at Hotel Dieu Hospital and Kingston General Hospital Research Institute.

“Our group at Queen’s brings many assets to this CIHR SPOR Network including expertise in chronic pain patient care and clinical pain research, biochemical and molecular pain research methods and pain epidemiology,” Dr. Gilron says. “We also have closely functioning relationships with the Canadian Pain Society, the IMMPACT Initiative (Initiative on Methods, Measurement, and Pain Assessment in Clinical Trials) and the International Association for the Study of Pain.”