Efficient and effective application of pain interventions requires evidence-based medical decision-making. The development of internationally recognized standards for judging scientific evidence for interventional pain has been the focus of the Evidence Based Medicine section of Pain Practice. These guidelines are currently being published as an ongoing series in the journal. This book will be a compilation of these guidelines.
Clinicians will use this book to guide their judicious use of interventional pain procedures - when and whether they should use an intervention. Other books guide on how to do the procedure.

The specific aim of this project is to disseminate state-of-the-art of interventional pain practice information to thus become the standard reference text in the area. The scope will cover all of interventional pain practice and is directed at subspecialists in the area of pain medicine.

Pain medicine subspecialists typically have primary certification in one of multiple clinically relevant areas, including anaesthesiology, physiatry, neurology, neurosurgery, psychiatry, rheumatology, or internal medicine. In the United States, subspecialty certification is currently open to anesthesiologists, physiatrists and neurologists. However, internationally it is only the FIPP examination that is uniformly available; candidates must have first acquired the highest possible certification in their respective countries prior to entering the FIPP application system.

Healthcare resources consume a progressively greater portion of the gross domestic production in most developed nations. Underdeveloped nations face even more extreme financial challenges. Making interventional procedures available to as many of those patients worldwide that truly need them is becoming increasingly difficult as resources are stressed. Insurers and others interested in medical economics and healthcare policy will find this a valuable resource.

While other texts are available regarding technical performance of these procedures (how to do them), little focus has been given to diagnostic considerations: if and when these procedures should be performed. This textbook will uniquely focus on how the history, physical examination, adjunctive testing and establishment of an accurate and specific diagnosis relate to the effectiveness of the interventions. The evidence, initially assembled using accepted approaches to evidence based medical practice, is then reviewed by panels of international content experts that vary with the specific diagnostic conditions. These chapters are then edited by the internationally constituted panel assembling this text