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Lidoderm (Lidocaine 5%) Patch Provides Effective Analgesia for Painful Diabetic Neuropathy: Presented at ASHP

By Bonnie Darves
Special to DG News

ATLANTA, GA -- December 12, 2002 -- A transdermal patch containing lidocaine 5 percent (Lidoderm) appears to provide significant improvement in both pain intensity and pain relief for patients with painful diabetic neuropathy, researchers reported here December 10^th at the clinical meeting of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists.

The results are important, researchers said, because the condition affects more than 50 percent of elderly patients with diabetes and is notoriously difficult to treat effectively.

The lidocaine patch is a targeted peripheral analgesic that has proved effective in treating postherpetic neuralgia. As such, it may be a potentially powerful strategy for treating painful diabetic neuropathy, according to the researchers, led by Stephanie Hart-Gouleau, MD, of the department of anaesthesiology at the University of Rochester School of Medicine, in Rochester, New York, United States.

The multi-centre, three-week, open-label, prospective trial included 56 men and four women aged 18 to 90 years with painful diabetic neuropathy of at least three months' duration and average daily pain ratings of 4 or higher on numeric pain scale.

Patients were treated with up to four lidocaine patches daily applied to areas of maximal peripheral neuropathic pain, in an 18-hours-on, six-hours-off manner. They were permitted to continue their analgesic medication regimen throughout the trial, as long as dosing remained stable.

For the 51 patients who completed the three weeks of treatment, the lidocaine patch provided significant reductions in pain. At baseline, mean overall pain relief from current therapy was 28.8 percent, compared to a mean of 63.1 percent at the end of the three weeks.

The results are encouraging, the researchers said, because the patch provided analgesia without local anaesthesia, and there were no serious treatment-related systemic adverse events or drug-to-drug interactions. The most frequently reported adverse event, which affected seven patients, was application site burning.

The researchers said that in light of the promising nature of the results, additional controlled clinical trials should be undertaken to further characterise the efficacy of the lidocaine patch in treating painful diabetic neuropathy.

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