The field of pain medicine has exploded over the last 20 years, with new techniques for the diagnosis and treatment of acute, postoperative, and chronic pain. Pain medicine has expanded to include not just anesthesiologists, but also physiatrists, neurologists, psychiatrists, and radiologists, and the techniques of spinal endoscopy, percutaneous discectomy, and percutaneous facet fusion have blurred the line between pain physician and surgeon.

As anesthesia-trained pain management physicians, we have been asked to be guest-editors for a special edition of Anesthesiology Research and Practice. In this issue, we would like to showcase the diversity of approaches to the patient in pain. We invite practitioners to contribute original research articles as well as review articles regarding new and modified pain techniques, as well as new treatment paradigms. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• New techniques and approaches to interventional pain diagnosis and treatment
• Safety modifications to existing techniques
• Physical examination techniques to improve diagnosis
• Long-term outcome of current pain management treatments
• The role of fibroproliferative techniques such as prolotherapy and platelet rich plasma
• Interventional management of headaches
• Interventional treatment of pelvic pain
• Postoperative pain management, preemptive analgesia, and the potential effect on the development of chronic pain

Before submission authors should carefully read over the journal's Author Guidelines, which are located at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/arp/guidelines/. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal Manuscript Tracking System at http://mts.hindawi.com/ according to the following timetable: