The School of Dentistry at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UT Health San Antonio) earned the first National Institutes of Health grant under its new Center for Pain Therapeutics and Addiction Research, addressing pain in patients with head and neck carcinoma. The nearly $600,000 grant by the NIH's National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research will address this critical pain issue that significantly impairs quality of life. Many head and neck carcinoma patients require opiate pain management, but tolerance develops quickly, requiring new pain relief approaches.
"It is often very difficult to treat pain from oral cancer with available medications due to limited effectiveness or rapid development of tolerance," said Shivani Ruparel, PhD, associate professor of endodontics at the UT Health San Antonio School of Dentistry, and the grant's recipient and principal investigator. We propose a novel mechanism of oral cancer pain that will provide knowledge for future research at developing drugs for not only pain management but also cancer treatment." Shivani Ruparel, Associate Professor, San Antonio School of Dentistry, The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio The Center for Pain Therapeutics and Addiction Research, started in June this year, represents a transformative multidisciplinary approach to decrease pain and addiction.
It focuses on both the mechanisms of pain and therapies to reduce or block its transmission, whether.
