UQ's new research center aims to improve lives of people living with pain

One of the world's foremost pain experts has highlighted the risks of bypassing established processes for assessing the safety and effectiveness of medicines at the launch of a research center at the University of Queensland.

Key points

• UQ's Centre for Innovation in Pain and Health Research aims to improve outcomes for people living with pain
• The Centre connects 200 UQ pain researchers and supports high profile national and global collaborations
• Speaking at the launch, an international expert has highlighted the importance of clinical research and regulatory processes.

In a public lecture, President of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) Professor Andrew Rice used an analysis of the use of cannabinoids for pain relief to illustrate concerns.

The collective body of work from our taskforce on cannabis and cannabinoid analgesia represents the most rigorous and unbiased appraisal of both preclinical and clinical evidence published to date.

We analyzed 36 randomized controlled trials and overwhelmingly concluded that cannabinoids are no more effective at treating pain than placebos.

At the same time, there are continuing concerns about adverse effects, including the risk of psychosis and dependence syndrome."

Professor Andrew Rice, President of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP)

Clinical priority

Director of The Centre for Innovation in Pain and Health Research Professor Paul Hodges said one of their aims was to conduct high-priority clinical trials to evaluate pain treatments, care models, and preventive strategies.

"We are striving to accelerate the development of effective interventions so that we can enhance the lives of people impacted by pain," Professor Hodges said.

"A current focus of our work aims improve matching the right patient with the right treatment at the right time.

"We are doing this through developing new tools to characterise people's pain, accelerating the translation of treatments from fundamental research to the clinic, and implementing new ways to test treatments using clever new types of clinical trials."

The Centre has been officially launched by Queensland Health Minister Tim Nicholls and brings together about 200 researchers in the largest and most diverse centre for pain research in Australia.