Practice guidelines for neuropathic pain management.

Neuropathic pain (NP) is a heterogeneous entity with wide diversity of symptoms. Despite the controversies regarding its definition and classification, which difficult its epidemiology, it has been estimated that 4 million people, in USA develop NP. Objective. A task force was created to generate a series of recommendations which facilitate the decision making and therapeutic approach of this kind of pain. Method. A search of medical literature was made in different electronic data bases (MEDLINE, EMBASE, COCHRANE); after this search we conducted three work-sessions and evaluated the evidence regarding the diagnosis and treatment of pain in painful diabetic poli-neuropathy, post-herpetic neuralgia, and trigeminal neuralgia were evaluated. Results. We found 329 documents for further analysis, and with the aid of the literature results we generate this practice guidelines.