title: Chronic orofacial pain.
abstract: Chronic orofacial pain (COFP) is an umbrella term used to describe painful regional syndromes with a chronic, unremitting pattern. This is a convenience term, similar to chronic daily headaches, but is of clinically questionable significance: syndromes that make up COFP require individually tailored diagnostic approaches and treatment. Herein we describe the three main categories of COFP: musculoskeletal, neurovascular, and neuropathic. For many years, COFP and headache have been looked upon as discrete entities. However, we propose the concept that because COFP and headaches share underlying pathophysiological mechanisms, clinical characteristics, and neurovascular anatomy, they should be classified together.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Dentistry, Department of Oral Medicine, Hebrew University-Hadassah, Jerusalem, Israel. benoliel@cc.huji.ac.il
authors.forename: Rafael
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Benoliel
authors.forename: Yair
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sharav
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002908:Chronic Disease; D005152:Facial Muscles / Q000098:blood supply / Q000294:innervation; D005157:Facial Pain / Q000145:classification / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology; D006261:Headache / Q000145:classification / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D009055:Mouth / Q000098:blood supply / Q000294:innervation; D013704:Temporomandibular Joint / Q000098:blood supply / Q000294:innervation