摘要篇首： The practice of modern anaesthesiology has extended into perioperative medicine. Due to their expertise in analgesic drug pharmacology and peripheral nerve blocking, anaesthesiologists have pioneered in the management of acute postoperative pain. Effective postoperative analgesia reduces the incidence of postoperative chronic pain, improves the functioning of organs following surgery and shortens the hospital stay.1,2 Although a variety of analgesic techniques and preventative approaches are at the disposal of modem aneasthesiologists, including patient controlled epidural analgesia (PCEA), patient controlled intravenous analgesia, multimodal analgesia and pre-empty analgesia.Despite this array of strategies, these predominantly opioid based techniques are still limited by side-effects such as vomiting, nausea, itching and urinary retention.To optimize further the management of acute postoperative pain, basic mechanisms of postoperative pain must be explored and new treatments must continue to be developed.