Painless patient offers genetic clues

Thursday March 28th, 2019

A woman who feels no pain is helping researchers pinpoint new genetic information about pain and healing.

The woman, who lives in Scotland, feels no pain – but also shows signs having accelerated wound healing, helping to compensate for frequent cuts and scratches in her lifetime.

She was found to have a mutation in a novel gene, now called FAAH-OUT, which is adjacent to the FAAH gene – already associated with pain.

The new gene was previously thought not to have a function, but in fact it appears to affect the activity of the FAAH gene, according to researchers at University College, London, UK.

The woman involved in the research feels no pain and very little anxiety and fear. In addition, she seems to have accelerated wound healing. Dr James Cox and the research team suggest this discovery could lead to future therapeutic approaches for pain and healing.

Dr Cox said: “We found this woman has a particular genotype that reduces activity of a gene already considered to be a possible target for pain and anxiety treatments. Now that we are uncovering how this newly-identified gene works, we hope to make further progress on new treatment targets.”

The woman was originally diagnosed by Dr Devjit Srivastava, who comments: “The implications for these findings are immense. One out of two patients after surgery today still experiences moderate to severe pain, despite all advances in pain killer medications and techniques.

“While we hope the FAAH-OUT gene could change things particularly for post-surgical pain, it remains to be seen if any new treatments could be developed based on our findings.”

“The findings point towards a novel painkiller discovery that could potentially offer post-surgical pain relief and also accelerate wound healing. We hope this could help the 330 million patients who undergo surgery globally every year.”

Findings appear today (28 March) in the British Journal of Anaesthesia.

Habib, A. M. et al. Micro-deletion in a FAAH pseudogene identified in a patient with high anandamide concentrations and pain insensitivity. British Journal of Anaesthesia 28 March 2019; doi: 10.1016/j.bja.2019.02.019.

Tags: Genetics | Pain Relief | UK News

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