Chronic neuropathic pain (Q47480)

Chronic neuropathic pain is chronic pain caused by a lesion or disease of the somatosensory nervous system. The pain may be spontaneous or evoked, as an increased response to a painful stimulus (hyperalgesia) or a painful response to a normally nonpainful stimulus (allodynia). The diagnosis of chronic neuropathic pain requires a history of nervous system injury or disease and a neuroanatomically plausible distribution of the pain. Negative (for example, decreased or loss of sensation) and positive sensory symptoms or signs (for example, allodynia or hyperalgesia) indicating the involvement of the somatosensory nervous system must be compatible with the innervation territory of the affected nervous structure.