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World J Pharmacology. Mar 9, 2017; 6(1): 1-10
Published online Mar 9, 2017. doi: 10.5497/wjp.v6.i1.1
Emerging pharmacological strategies for the treatment of fibromyalgia
Kim Lawson
Kim Lawson, Department of Biosciences and Chemistry, Biomolecular Sciences Research Centre, Sheffield Hallam University, Faculty of Health and Wellbeing, Sheffield S1 1WB, United Kingdom
Author contributions: Lawson K researched the materials for the article and wrote the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: There is no conflict of interest associated with the author for the contributions in this manuscript.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (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: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Kim Lawson, BTech(Hons), PhD, Senior Lecturer, Department of Biosciences and Chemistry, Biomolecular Sciences Research Centre, Sheffield Hallam University, Faculty of Health and Wellbeing, City Campus, Sheffield S1 1WB, United Kingdom. k.lawson@shu.ac.uk
Telephone: +44-114-2253057 Fax: +44-114-2253066
Received: October 29, 2016
Peer-review started: November 2, 2016
First decision: December 1, 2016
Revised: January 6, 2017
Accepted: February 8, 2017
Article in press: February 10, 2017
Published online: March 9, 2017
Core Tip

Core tip: Fibromyalgia (FM) is a multidimensional chronic pain condition that current therapies provide modest and limited efficacy due to the heterogeneity of the condition, contribution of peripheral and central components to the pathophysiology, and a range of co-morbidities. Drugs acting on novel and existing targets, such as melatoninergic, cannabinoid, dopamine, NMDA, angiotensin, orexin and opioid receptors, ion channels, bioamine processes and subunits have provided efficacy outcomes that improve the health status of patients with FM. An understanding of the pathophysiology of FM is providing potential targets for new medications.