Although acute pain and associated responses can be unpleasant and often debilitating, they
serve important adaptive purposes. They identify and localize noxious stimuli, initiate
withdrawal responses that limit tissue injury, inhibit mobility thereby enhancing wound
healing1. Nevertheless, intense and prolonged pain transmission2, as well as analgesic
undermedication, can increase surgical postsurgical / traumatic morbidity, delay recovery,
and lead to development of chronic pain. Despite the obviously simple nature of surgical
incision, however, perioperative and specifically postoperative pain remain underevaluated
and poorly treated. Recent surveys suggest that 80% of patients experience pain after
surgery3, 11% having severe pain, and that pain delays recovery in 24% of patients
undergoing ambulatory surgery4.