Abstract
Pharmacotherapy of pain can be ineffective for various reasons: for not tailoring therapy with respect to specific causes and mechanisms of a particular pain, overestimating effectivess of some analgesics or on the contrary by underestimating or ignorance of effectivenes of another pharmacotherapy, insufficient knowledge of essential principles of pharmacotherapy of pain, not respecting marked inter-individual differences in responses to analgesics, exaggerated opiophobia or another pharmacophobia. Pharmacotherapy of pain can be effective but sometimes inadequate in terms of unnecessary increased risks.
Increased risks might represent NSAIDs in the elderly and administration of NSAIDs or tramadol in patients taking SSRI. A short information on new analgesics for clinical use in the Czech Republic is given as well as on new guidelines for pharmacotherapy of pain.