Painful scar neuropathy: principles of diagnosis and treatment

Nerve-tissue interactions are critical. Peripheral nerve injuries may involve intraneural and extraneural scar formation and affect nerve gliding planes, sometimes leading to complex clinical presentations. All of these pathological entities involve pain as the main clinical symptom and can be subsumed under the term "painful scar neuropathy". The authors review the literature on treatment approaches to peripheral nerve scar neuropathy and the outcomes of neurolysis-associated procedures and propose a simple classification and a therapeutic approach to scar neuropathy. The search retrieved twenty-one papers, twenty of which reported pain reduction or resolution with various techniques. Ther…