Change Pain Latin America--new initiative established to enhance management of patients with chronic pain in Latin America.

wish to advise you of the formation of a new scienific advisory panel, committed to enhancing the quality f life of chronic pain patients in Latin America. The anel was formed in response to the encouraging outcomes bserved with the Change Pain Europe program, which imed to identify the unmet needs of European chronic ain patients and provide best practice solutions to improve atient outcomes. The panel of regional experts is driving pan-Latin American initiative: Change Pain Latin America CPLA). The CPLA Advisory Panel comprises 17 experts from razil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, enezuela and Spain, who work across a variety of clinical ain-related specialties (Table 1). Panel members are pplying their knowledge and experience to highlight and ddress the unmet medical needs associated with treating atients with chronic pain in Latin America and overcome bstacles to improve best practice and outcomes in this egion. The inaugural meeting of the panel took place in iami (June 28--29, 2012) where discussions focused on urrent treatment paradigms in Latin America and barriers o effective patient management. During this meeting, he objectives for CPLA were determined after robust iscussions, and accepted with consensual agreement from he panel members (Table 2). While suboptimal management of patients with chronic ain is a global issue, factors that contribute to this problem n Latin America include gaps in physicians’ understanding nd associated pain management misconceptions. Patients n Latin America often misunderstand the risks associted with analgesics, making patient education a priority. onsequently, healthcare professionals in the region have nadequate knowledge of the advantages and disadvantages f opioids, and the correct dosing of these medications, hich limits appropriate prescribing. Other significant bariers include limited patient access to medications and/or ain specialists and specialist facilities, as well as restricive government healthcare policies. All of these factors o g t I