Back in June, we awarded Colleen Cunningham with the SAGE Bursary Award to attend the IASP 2024 World Congress on Pain.

Colleen was kind enough to share her experience with us, please enjoy her relfection below:

I would like to thank the Irish Pain Society, for awarding me with the Sage Nurse Education Award bursary, to attend the IASP Conference in Amsterdam.

My impression overall was one of awe, in view of the extensive research being completed worldwide in Pain. As this was my first time at an International Conference, I had no idea what to expect, and spent the week rushing from room to room to gain as much knowledge as possible.

I managed to take extensive notes, which I have disseminated to my colleagues in Pain, but presentations that I found extremely interesting were;

Helene Langevin, who in discussing the transition from Acute to Chronic Pain, mentioned ‘The Pain Resolution’ area of pain, which was not a term I was familiar with, and which will hopefully (as is her advice), be researched more in the future.

Marie Oslo’s research, on examining Mu-opioids and reward behaviour, found that opioid naive patients unlikely to feel better after IV Opioid, are x2times better if they had opioids before, and x4 better with prolonged use.

There was multiple discussions regarding Central Sensitisation, with not a whole lot of agreement on what it was. Rolf-Detlef Treede spoke about research being published this year, which aimed to investigate is there an experimental difference in central sensitisation between men and women. Result: Women showed larger area of secondary hyperalgesia than men. Other factors that may influence area of hyperalgesia were also discussed here, namely the autonomic nervous system and the modulation of parasympathetic activity. Advice was that more research is required around if changing the parasympathetic activity influences Central Sensitisation.

Eva Kosek’s presentation was on the concept of nocicplastic pain. Here I learned that, shockingly, 25% of patients with OA also go on to develop Fibromyalgia. The clinical criteria and grading of nocicplastic pain tables displayed will be extremely helpful in assessing pain.  The importance of education was also emphasised, in seeing Pain as a disease rather than a symptom. We were reminded that Nocicplastic pain is not a reliable warning sign of actual tissue damage, this helps avoid unnecessary fear around movement/activity.

Mario Loggia spoke about his research in Neuroinflammation, and if it has a role in human chronic pain. His research focuses on The Translocator Protein (TSPO), which is a neuroinflammation marker. Envisions and hopes for the future include identifying a specific neuromodulator…..Currently testing if TSPO PET signals can be treated, no results yet. This also raises the question if TSPO PET Signal can predict response to treatment. A large study in the works was mentioned involving Knee Arthroplasty, which looks promising.

Finally, Julius Lab spoke about TRP channels which was beneficial for neuropathic pain and the various therapeutic possibilities were touched upon.

This level of academic learning would not have been available to me, had it not been for this bursary, so thank you again, it was certainly a once in a lifetime opportunity.