NEW EAU GUIDELINES ON THE MANAGEMENT OF CHRONIC PELVIC PAIN

March 2008 - Arnhem, The Netherlands - The European Association of Urology (EAU) are pleased to announce the release of several new updates of their guidelines at the occasion of their annual meeting held in Milan, March 26th-29th.

One of the new updates achieved is a guideline on the management of Chronic Pelvic Pain.

Chronic Pelvic Pain covers an extremely wide field and one of the major problems encountered over the past years has been nomenclature. This 2008 update uses the recommendation for terminology laid down by the International Continence Society (ICS) and follows the axial structure of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) classification.

Pain syndrome terms were introduced to indicate the multiple mechanisms involved, both physical and psychological. This approach has been reviewed on many occasions over the past few years and has been found to be robust. The EAU guidelines expand this approach, so avoiding spurious diagnostic terms, which are associated with inappropriate investigations, inappropriate treatments, inappropriate patient expectations and ultimately a worse prognostic outlook.

The major controversy in classifying chronic pain is that a pain may involve multiple sites, aetiologies and mechanisms (confusable diseases and overlapping features). This is why the assessment and management of these areas are also expanded in these guidelines and for the emphasis on a multidisciplinary approach.

The multidisciplinary panel developing this guideline was chaired by M. Fall and included A.P. Baranowski, S. Elneil, D. Engeler, J. Hughes, E.J. Messelink, F. Oberpenning and A.C. de Williams. This text aims to contribute to further insights in this complex area, and future updates will be needed as new data will become available.

All EAU guidelines texts are available full text online on the society website: http://www.uroweb.org/professional-resources/guidelines/

About the European Association of Urology: Established in 1972, the European Association of Urology is now entering a period marked by growth in its membership, thanks to the efforts made in the mid-1990s to modernise the EAU’s structure and widen its activities. With the crucial goal to enhance patient care, the EAU’s core mission is to act as the representative body for all European urologists, thus facilitating the continuous development of urology and all its subspecialties. In order to maintain the high standards of urological care throughout Europe, the EAU stimulates education and urological research and helps disseminate the results.