The Evolving Role of Anaesthesiologist in Chronic Pain Management: A Narrative Review on Innovations and Future Perspectives

Chronic pain is a widespread and complex medical condition that profoundly diminishes the quality of life, emotional status and functional ability. As knowledge about pain pathophysiology becomes more profound, the anaesthesiologist’s role has been extended beyond the perioperative period to become responsible for chronic pain management. This narrative review discusses the changing roles of anaesthesiologists in diagnosing, treating and managing chronic pain patients, offering an in-depth review of recent pharmacological approaches, interventional methods and advanced neuromodulation techniques applied in the practice setting. It highlights the relevance of multimodal and multidisciplinary pain management paradigms that incorporate physical, psychological and behavioural therapies. Together with tried-and-tested approaches, new advances like regenerative medicine, precision pain management and health technologies involving digital interventions—e.g., mobile applications and wearable monitoring—are presented. Increasing integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning with personalised pain care represents a new frontier, promising greater diagnostic accuracy, treatment planning and predictive outcomes. Despite these advances, persistent difficulties continue to exist, such as subjective pain measurement, opioid addiction, unequal access to treatment and systemic barriers to healthcare. The originality of this review lies in its holistic approach, crossing traditional methods with innovative technologies and patient-oriented models of care. It highlights the pivotal role of anaesthesiologists in changing the pain management paradigm for chronic conditions from mere symptom control to functional recovery and improved quality of life, while also mapping out future pathways in terms of innovation, education and policy reforms that can enable anaesthesiologists to spearhead this revolution in pain medicine.