Abstract
Differences in pain genomics between sex, gender, and race/ethnicity lead to differential clinical pain assessment and diagnosis, and therefore variable use of management and treatment. Generally, women experience higher rates of pain and have lower pain tolerance. Additionally, non-Hispanic Whites have the least severe chronic and acute pain. Variants and SNPs in the COMT, GCH1, and OPRM family of genes have been associated with higher pain sensitivity both in clinical and experimental settings for women compared to men. For the transgender population, hormonal treatment causes the pain sensitivity of the patient to be that of the converted sex instead of the birth. Differences in the aforementioned genes also account for the variance in pain experience and tolerance between races, where ethnic minorities tend to have lower tolerance. These racial and sex differences in pain genomics are important to understand in order to provide the best pain management and care for all patients.
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Cong, X., Tan, Z., Weidig, T. (2020). Sex, Race, and Genomics of Pain. In: Dorsey, S., Starkweather, A. (eds) Genomics of Pain and Co-Morbid Symptoms. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21657-3_14
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