In the United States about 50 million people sufer from recurrent or chronic pain, and nearly 10% of adults take medication for pain daily. Further, the disease burden of pain is expected to grow, relative to other illnesses and conditions. Despite the advances in pain medicine, most physicians are not - equately trained to treat chronic or even acute pain. As in other felds of medicine, pain medicine has long been dominated by expert op- ion relying on personal expertise, and only recently has a systematic evaluation of treatments in the terms of "evidence-based medicine" been performed. And also as in other felds of medicine, a lot can be achieved in pain medicine when certain basic diagnostic and therapeutic pathways are f- lowed correctly; more than can be achieved when only a few specialists are able to treat these conditions. "Standard operating procedures" (SOPs) are supposed to be concise practical aids for clinicians, standardizing treatments, diagnostic pa- ways and procedures in one of sometimes many possible ways. Although based on the available evidence, they are not evidence-based guidelines and are not supposed to replace such guidelines. On one hand, eviden- based medicine ofen leaves many options open, since in many cases the available evidence is not sufcient to recommend a specifc option. On the other hand, there might be reasons due to clinical practice (e. g.

"The increasing call for quality management and improvement can only be met by the introduction of standard operating procedures (SOPs) which ensure continuity and consistent quality in patient care. The purpose of the book is to review the practice of pain therapy in a very concise form. Based on the longstanding experience of the authors and editors, specific, proven guidelines have been developed on how to proceed in a variety of clinical situations. All relevant procedures are described in a short and clear manner so that the user will know specifically what to do in certain clinical circumstances.Numerous studies have shown that the implementation of SOPs in the various participating departments can optimize processes and lead to shorter hospital stays. In this way, standards can become a significant factor in boosting efficiency and reducing costs."

General principles of pain therapy. Pain evaluation. Pain documentation. Psychological pain therapy.- Headache. Migraine. Tension-type headache (TTH). Persistent idiopathic facial pain. Cluster headache. Medication-overuse headache (MOH). Trigeminal neuralgia.- Back pain. Radicular root irritation syndrome. Pseudoradicular root irritation syndrome. Fibromyalgia. Osteoporosis.- Neuropathic pain. Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS). Phantom pain. Post-herpetic neuralgia.- Cancer pain.- Postoperative pain. Nurse-controlled analgesia (NCA). Patient-controlled analgesia (PCA). Epidural analgesia (EDA). Continuous peripheral nerve analgesia.