The Problem of Pain

"We may be on the verge of a new pharmacopoeia for preventing and treating pain," says Joyce DeLeo, assistant professor of anesthesiology at Dartmouth Medical School. DeLeo heads a group that studies neuropathic pain—the kind of burning, shooting pain for which standard analgesics provide little relief. Though pain plays a role in healing, forcing us to rest and reducing the likelihood of further injury, some forms of chronic pain persist and become even more intense after healing apparently is complete. The team discovered that the immune system is involved in initiating and maintaining pain by producing proteins called cytokines. The untreatable chronic pain suffered by many cancer patients might be triggered by these immune system proteins, suggests DeLeo. Her finding could lead to new pain-relieving drugs.

GOALIE SARAH TUETING '9B (front) gives cheering fans a smile and a wave after the U.S. women's Olympic hockey team won the gold in Nagano. Tueting was the star of the 3-1 victory over Canada, stopping 21 shots. Fellow Greener Grechen Ulion '94 (far right) scored a goal and an assist in the game. The women's victory brought Dartmouth's gold-medal total in the winter Olympics to five, starting with the two gold medals in 1934 won by speed skater John Shea '34.