Diagnostic and Prognostic Biomarkers for High-impact Chronic Pain: Development and Validation

February 18, 2026 updated by: Sean Mackey, Stanford University
To identify diagnostic and prognostic biomarker signatures of recovery versus having persisting high-impact chronic pain and functional disability in adults with Chronic Musculoskeletal Pain.

Study Overview

Status

Active, not recruiting

Conditions

Detailed Description

Our overall goal is to discover and validate diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers for musculoskeletal high-impact chronic pain. Chronic pain represents a public health crisis that affects 50-100 million Americans and costs over $500 billion dollars annually. Chronic musculoskeletal pain conditions comprise 70-80% of all chronic pain. The highest-need and most impacted patients are those with high-impact chronic pain (affecting ~20 million Americans), or pain associated with substantially restricted work, social, and self-care activities for six or more months. Chronic pain-and high-impact chronic pain in particular-is often treated with prescription opioids, and is linked to opioid-use disorder. Multidisciplinary chronic pain treatments show incomplete recovery at the population level. However, subgroups of individuals completely respond, do not change, or even worsen following pain management. Thus, robust and validated diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers are needed to identify those with high-impact chronic pain and determine the trajectory of outcome (i.e., recovery versus persistence), respectively. Such biomarkers are essential to develop safer, more effective patient-specific treatment strategies, particularly for those who are refractory to current treatment options.

Many factors have been shown to be (1) diagnostic for the severity and impact of chronic pain or (2) prognostic of the trajectory of chronic pain, including those that are related to the central nervous system (CNS; structure, function), psychosocial (e.g., anxiety, catastrophizing, social isolation), sensory (e.g., temporal summation, conditioned pain modulation),1functional (e.g., accelerometry), multiomic (e.g., immune, microbiome), and demographic. However, these studies are limited by (1) association rather than predictive validity; (2) small sample sizes; (3) homogenous populations limiting external validity; and (4) single modality factors. As chronic pain is a biopsychosocial condition, the investigator will need to measure broadly across these multiple dimensions; the most valuable insights will be gained by understanding not only individual pieces of data, but the relationships among them. Recognizing the critical need for rapid, valid, and clinically useful breakthroughs in signature discovery for risk- and treatment-stratification and novel therapeutic targets for chronic pain, as called for in the HEAL initiative, the investigator's aim is to discover reliable, validated diagnostic and prognostic biomarker signatures of musculoskeletal high-impact chronic pain by integrating CNS, multiomic, sensory, functional, psychosocial, and demographic domains.

Study Type

Observational

Enrollment (Estimated)

250

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • California
      • Palo Alto, California, United States, 94304
        • Stanford University

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

18 years to 80 years (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Sampling Method

Non-Probability Sample

Study Population

Musculoskeletal high-impact chronic pain.

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • 1) Inclusion criteria: Adults (18-80 years; ~64% female expected based on clinic distribution) with chronic MSP as categorized by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Exclusion Criteria:

  • 1) Chronic musculoskeletal pain (MSP) explained by inflammatory disease (e.g., rheumatoid arthritis, lupus) or CP with a primary diagnosis other than chronic MSP (e.g., neuropathic pain), (2) significant cognitive impairment, (3) MRI contraindication, (4) medical or psychiatric problems interfering with the study, (5) current medicolegal factors (e.g., open disability claim), (6) plans for surgery during the study, (7) pregnancy and (8) Children under the age of 18 will not be included in the study.

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Observational Models: Cohort
  • Time Perspectives: Prospective

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Pain Interference:
Time Frame: 6 months after baseline assessment
Pain Interference using Patient-Reported Outcome Measurement Information System (PROMIS)-Pain Interference on a T score (mean: 50; standard deviation: 10) and Graded Chronic Pain Scale (GCPS)
6 months after baseline assessment

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Stanford University

Collaborators

National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Sean Mackey, MD, PhD., Stanford University

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

March 21, 2022

Primary Completion (Estimated)

April 25, 2027

Study Completion (Estimated)

December 31, 2027

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

July 29, 2021

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

July 29, 2021

First Posted (Actual)

August 6, 2021

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

February 20, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

February 18, 2026

Last Verified

February 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 60657
  • 1R61NS118651-01A1 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

UNDECIDED

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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