Further the study suggested that evaluation of G472A allele of Mb.COMT gene in the patients undergoing sternotomy for monitoring pain in pre and post-surgical events.
The findings provide multimeasure and multimethod support for genetic moderation of a maladaptive coping and pain process and suggest that genetic variation in the val(158)met polymorphism may affect fibromyalgia pain through pathways of pain-related cognition.
Genetics-based personalized approaches to pain management have received a setback because of the nonreproducibility of functional genetic associations such as the pain-modulatory effect of the catechol-O-methyl transferase (COMT) gene 472G>A single-nucleotide polymorphism.
The COMT val158met polymorphism thus influences the human experience of pain and may underlie interindividual differences in the adaptation and responses to pain and other stressful stimuli.
The primary aim of this study was to investigate the effects of the catechol-O-methyltransferase Val</span>158Met polymorphism on heat pain perception in a cohort of adults receiving daily opioid therapy for chronic pain.
This suggests that the val(1</span>58)met SNP plays a primary role in variation in temporal summation of pai</span>n, but that other SNPs of the COMT haplotype exert a greater influence on resting nociceptive sensitivity.
Results show that the COMT rs4680 (val(158)met) polymorphism is most strongly associated with outcome measures, such that individuals with the minor A allele (met) exhibit reduced COMT activity, increased TMD risk, and increased musculoskeletal pain.
In the overall sample, rs4633 and rs4680 were significantly associated with morphine use, whereas rs4818 was associated with time-averaged pain scores.
In the present study, we used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to investigate the brain response to heat pain stimuli in 54 subjects genotyped for the common COMT val158met polymorphism (val/val = n 22, val/met = n 20, met/met = n 12).
Thus, our data show that the val158met polymorphism in the COMT gene contributes significantly to inter-individual differences in neural pain processing: in healthy people, this polymorphism was more related to cognitive aspects of pain processing, whereas BPD patients with reduced pain sensitivity showed an association with activity in brain regions related to affective pain processing.
In Chinese patients, the incidence of postsurgical pain was significantly higher in variant COMT rs4680 genotypes (P = 0.0007) but not in the Malay or Indian cohorts.
The Val158Met polymorphism (rs4680) does not appear to be involved in predisposition to tension-type headache; however, this genetic factor may be involved in the pathogenesis expression of CTTH, as greater pressure pain sensitivity and higher depressive levels were found in CTTH carrying the Met/Met genotype.
Results show that the COMT rs4680 (val(158)met) polymorphism is most strongly associated with outcome measures, such that individuals with the minor A allele (met) exhibit reduced COMT activity, increased TMD risk, and increased musculoskeletal pain.
According with previous research, our findings revealed that haplotypes of the COMT gene and genotypes of the Val158Met polymorphism play a key role on pain sensitivity in FM patients.
The association between COMT Val158Met polymorphism (rs4680) and the inter-individual differences in the response to opioid analgesic therapy was investigated in a cohort of 87 Italian paediatric patients receiving opioids for cancer pain (STOP Pain study).
It is shown that a polymorphism in the COMT gene, Rs4680 (Val158Met), influence pain sensitivity in human experimental pain and the efficacy for morphine in cancer pain treatment.
More generally, apart from one report that focused on pain-induced opioid release, this is the first functional neuroimaging study showing an effect of the COMT val158met polymorphism on cerebral pain processing.