What is it about?
Tendons cause longstanding pain around many joints in the human body. Treatment of longstanding tendon pain is however often related with poor results due to poor understanding of underlying problems of the disease. We have found that longstanding tendon pain is related to excessive nerve fibers growing into the tendon substance, which during normal conditions is devoid of nerve fibers.
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Why is it important?
Our findings show that longstanding tendon pain is characterised by protracted ingrowth of sensory nerves, which have increased release of pain substances and also exhibit a higher expression of pain receptors. Moreover, the nervous system interact with the immune system via receptors on immune cells, which are involved in the pain regulation.
Perspectives
New treatments could be developed by interacting in these pathways, such as regulating the nervous system by eg. blocking nerve ingrowth and nerve-immune coupling. Such strategies could help to mitigate longstanding tendon pain.
Professor Paul W Ackermann
Karolinska Institutet
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Tendon pain – what are the mechanisms behind it?, Scandinavian Journal of Pain, July 2022, De Gruyter,
DOI: 10.1515/sjpain-2022-0018.
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