The following is a summary of “Polygenic Contributions to Chronic Overlapping Pain Conditions in a Large Electronic Health Record Sample,” published in the June 2023 issue of Pain by Schirle et al.

Chronic overlapping pain conditions (COPCs) are believed to share etiological mechanisms involving central sensitization. Hypothetically, genetic and environmental factors influence susceptibility to central sensitization and COPCs. This study employed a genome-wide polygenic risk score method to assess genetic influences on eight common COPCs. COPCs were identified using International Classification of Disease codes in Vanderbilt’s deidentified clinical biorepository (BioVU), and each COPC condition was empirically weighted for the degree of central sensitization based on previous research. 

For 55,340 individuals, a centralized pain score (CPS) was calculated by adding the weighted number of COPCs. In total, 12,502 people (22.6% of the population) were diagnosed with at least one COPC, with females exhibiting nearly double the mean CPS of males. To examine the genetic influence on centralized pain in COPCs, six pain polygenic risk scores (PRSs) were developed using data from the UK Biobank to predict six pain criteria (no pain, neck/shoulder, abdomen, hip, knee, and low back pain). These PRSs were then tested for association with CPS in the BioVU cohort. Except for hip pain, all pain PRSs were significantly associated with CPS in regression models adjusted for age, gender, and BMI. 

Their findings suggest that COPCs share a polygenic influence that may involve central sensitization mechanisms. This study employed a polygenic risk score methodology to investigate genetic influences on chronic pain conditions that overlap. Significant findings from this study provide evidence in support of previous hypotheses that a shared polygenic effect involving central sensitization may underlie chronic pain conditions that overlap and can direct future biomarker and risk assessment research.

Source: sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1526590023000263