Porto, Portugal.
The International Symposium on Understanding Cancer Associated Pain and the PAINLESS Project was held on the 4th of November 2022 at Instituto Portugues de Oncologia do Porto. Attended by 150 professionals and students, the symposium kicked-off by organising workshop sessions to discuss specific details on the bed-side assessment protocol for PAINLESS and outlining the first work package: Selection of a panel of biomarkers of central pain processing and modulation and assessment of their validity to predict chronic pain. Biomarkers refer to any measurable and naturally occurring characteristic in the body that can help the identification of a specific process e.g contact heat evoked potentials. In general, work package 1 seeks to find out which biomarkers may inform us about pain processing and how effectively these biomarkers can be used to predict future pain in patients with cancer.
This symposium presented key topics associated with PAINLESS, like the current state of the pathophysiology of pain, polymorphisms associated with cancer pain, quantitative profiling of patients with pain, and chemotherapy-induced neuropathy, among many others. The primary investigator of PAINLESS, Professor María Teresa Carillo de la Peña, then closed the symposium by summarising the objectives, studies and the intended impact of the PAINLESS project. This symposium was a fantastic opportunity to gain insights into the details of PAINLESS and to hear from researchers on the ground – we eagerly look forward to the next meeting.
Check out some photos from the event below!
