Chronic pain after amputation (Q89601)

Chronic pain after amputation is chronic pain developing or increasing in intensity after a surgical amputation of a limb or parts thereof, and also breast, tongue, teeth, genitalia, the eye and even inner organs such as the rectum that persists or recurs for longer than 3 months after surgery (i.e. beyond the healing process). The pain is either localised to the stump (chronic stump pain) or projected into the amputated limb (phantom limb pain). Other causes of chronic pain including infection, malignancy etc. need to be excluded as well as chronic pain continuing from a pre-existing pain condition. In case of pain that continues from a preoperative condition, intensity and/or pain characteristics must be different (development of a neuropathic component: stump pain or phantom pain).