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©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Orthop. Oct 18, 2025; 16(10): 110009
Published online Oct 18, 2025. doi: 10.5312/wjo.v16.i10.110009
Published online Oct 18, 2025. doi: 10.5312/wjo.v16.i10.110009
Nanotechnology for pain management in orthopedic surgery
Emerito Carlos Rodriguez-Merchan, Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Hospital Universitario La Paz-IdiPaz, Madrid 28046, Spain
Javier De Andres-Ares, Pain Unit, Department of Anesthetics, Hospital Universitario la Paz-IdiPaz, Madrid 28046, Spain
Alberto D Delgado-Martinez, Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Hospital Universitario de Jaen, Servicio Andaluz de Salud, Jaen E-23071, Spain
William J Ribbans, Faculty of Health, Education and Society, University of Northampton, The County Clinic, Northampton NN15DB, United Kingdom
Author contributions: All authors equally conceived and designed the study, collected the data, performed the analysis, wrote the paper, and read and approved the final version of the manuscript to be published.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors of this article have no conflict of interest.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Emerito Carlos Rodriguez-Merchan, MD, PhD, Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Hospital Universitario La Paz-IdiPaz, Paseo de la Castellana 261, Madrid 28046, Spain. ecrmerchan@hotmail.com
Received: May 28, 2025
Revised: June 10, 2025
Accepted: September 8, 2025
Published online: October 18, 2025
Processing time: 142 Days and 0.4 Hours
Revised: June 10, 2025
Accepted: September 8, 2025
Published online: October 18, 2025
Processing time: 142 Days and 0.4 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: Nanotechnology offers encouraging alternatives for the management of pain in orthopedic surgery either as drug transporters or as capacitor devices/patches. As drug transporter-based formulations for morphine, bupivacaine, and lidocaine, nanotechnology permits lengthening the duration of these drugs and increasing the effective analgesic dose, consequently diminishing potential drug toxicity. The nanocapacitor-based technology, the NeuroCupleTM device, possibly represents an efficacious non-pharmacology method.