Table 2. Advantages and disadvantages of various therapeutic approaches to target DRG neurons.

Approach	Advantages	Disadvantages
Systemic administration	Ease of the technique Widespread actions	Prone to side effects Temporary effects
Local injections	Precise tissue delivery Achieve high local concentrations	Limited to few tissues Can be difficult to perform Temporary
Dorsal root ganglia stimulation	Precise tissue delivery On demand and long-lasting therapy	Limited to few tissues Surgically implanted Unclear mechanism of action
Nerve blockade	Precise delivery to a subpopulation of DRG neurons Local actions	Potential toxicity of QX-314 Temporary
siRNA therapy	Target specifically DRG neurons Selective knockdown of virtually any gene	Transfection efficiency Temporary
Viral therapy	Target specific DRG neurons Long-lasting therapy Can be manipulated for knockdown, knockout, and knockin function	Immunoreactivity Potentially irreversible
Stem cell therapy	Precise migration to damaged DRG tissue Long-lasting pain relief Can be manipulated using recombination Can be cultured from patients	Dependency on CCL12-CCR4 signaling Limited availability of cells Risk of teratoma