Individualized multidisciplinary analgesia to prevent persistent postsurgical pain

Purpose of review Persistent postsurgical pain as outcome of surgery has reached more attention in the past years. In the first place because of related disability, long-term use of (opioid)analgesics and impact on the quality of life of individual patients. In addition, the individual and societal socio-economic burden of PPSP is high and increasing in the light of increasing numbers of surgery world-wide. Recent findings Actual studies identified risk factors for persistent postsurgical pain in relevant patient populations. Astonishingly, most of predicting factors seem unrelated to surgery. Future perioperative practice will have to focus on identifying patients at risk for PPSP before surgery and develop/offer suitable individually tailored preventive interventions.