01.12.2014 | Research article | Ausgabe 1/2014 Open Access
Assessment of the feasibility of high-concentration capsaicin patches in the pain unit of a tertiary hospital for a population of mixed refractory peripheral neuropathic pain syndromes in Non-diabetic patients
- Zeitschrift:
- BMC Anesthesiology > Ausgabe 1/2014
Wichtige Hinweise
Electronic supplementary material
The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1471-2253-14-120) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Marc Giménez-Milà, Sebastián Videla contributed equally to this work.
Competing interests
S.V. has received a fee for collaborating with Laboratorios Dr Esteve in pain area. This work has not received funding. The authors declare that they have no competing interests
Author’s contributions
MG-M, CB and SV designed and wrote the study protocol. MAN, AF, AO, AB and LAM visited, monitored and followed up the patients, and applied the capsaicin patch. MG-M, CH-C and SV performed the statistical analysis and updated the database; all the authors participated in the analysis and interpretation of the data. MG-M, CH-C and SV drafted the manuscript, and all the authors reviewed it critically for important intellectual content. All the authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript.
Abstract
Background
High-concentration-capsaicin-patches (Qutenza®) have been put on the market as a treatment for peripheral neuropathic pain. A minimum infrastructure and a determinate skill set for its application are required. Our aim was to assess the feasibility of treatment with high-concentration-capsaicin-patches in clinical practice in a variety of refractory peripheral neuropathic pain syndromes in non-diabetic patients.
Methods
Observational, prospective, single-center study of patients attended to in the Pain Unit of a tertiary hospital, ≥18 year-old non-responders to multimodal analgesia of both genders. The feasibility for the application of capsaicin patch in clinical practice was evaluated by means of the number of patients controlled per day when this one was applied and by means of the times used for patch application.
Results
Between October 2010 and September 2011, 20 consecutive non-diabetic patients (7 males, 13 females) with different diagnoses of refractory peripheral neuropathic pain syndromes, with a median (range) age of 60 (33–88) years-old were treated with a single patch application. The median (range) number of patients monitored per day was not modified when the capsaicin patch was applied [27 (26–29)] in comparison with it was not applied [28 (26–30)]. The median (range) total time to determine and mark the painful area was 9 (6–15) minutes and of patch application was 60 (58–65) minutes. No important adverse reactions were observed.
Conclusion
High-concentration-capsaicin-patch treatment was feasible in our unit for the treatment of a population with refractory peripheral neuropathic pain. The routine of our unit was not affected by its use.
