Bone Pain

Bone pain is a debilitating form of pain emanating from the bone tissue. It occurs as a result of a wide range of diseases and/or physical conditions and may severely impair the quality of life for patients who suffer from it. Bone pain has multiple causes, such as extensive physical stress and diseases such as cancer. For many years it has been known that bones are innervated with sensory neurons. Yet their exact anatomy remained obscure due to the contrasting physical properties of bone and neural tissue. However, until recently, it was not determined what types of nerves innervated which sections of bone. The periosteal layer of bone tissue is highly pain-sensitive and an important cause of pain in several disease conditions causing bone pain, like fractures, osteoarthritis, etc. However, in certain diseases the endosteal and haversian nerve supply seems to play an important role, e.g. osteomalacia, osteonecrosis, and so on. Thus there are several types of bone pain, each with many potential sources or origins of cause.