ASH SCD Guidelines: Management of Acute and Chronic Pain
Over recent years, there has been growing recognition that acute and chronic pain remain among the most frequent, burdensome, and challenging complications of sickle cell disease (SCD) across the lifespan. The ASH Clinical Practice Guidelines on SCD-related acute and chronic pain provide evidence-based recommendations to support clinicians in assessing, treating, and longitudinally managing pain for children and adults living with SCD, in both acute care and outpatient settings. These guidelines are designed to help hematologists, emergency and primary care clinicians, and interdisciplinary care teams use the full range of pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic approaches, promote timely and effective pain control, and partner with individuals with SCD and their families in shared decision-making to improve daily functioning, quality of life, and long-term outcomes.
In 2023, these guidelines were reviewed by an expert work group convened by ASH. Review included limited searches for new evidence and discussion of the search results. Following this review, the ASH Committee on Quality agreed to continue monitoring the supporting evidence rather than revise or retire these guidelines at this time.
Guideline Implementation Tools and Resources
ASH Clinical Practice Guidelines App
The ASH Clinical Practice Guidelines App provides access to the recommendations with links to the complete evidence-to-decision tables used to develop them.
ACEP ASH SCD Pain Point-of-Care Tool
ASH and ACEP partnered to develop tools for Emergency Department physicians based on ASH SCD guidelines.
Teaching Slides
Educational slide sets to teach about managing acute and chronic pain in patients with SCD.
- Management of Acute and Chronic Pain
Powerpoint | PDF