The Efficacy of Gabapentin in Patients with Central Post-stroke Pain

Document Type : Research article

Authors

1 Department of Neurology, Imam Hossein Educational Hospital, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

2 Loghman Medical and Educational Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

3 Department of Neurology, Imam Hossein Medical and Educational Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

4 a- Department of Clinical Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran b- Imam Hossein Medical and Educational Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Thalamic pain syndrome, a type of central post-stroke pain (CPSP), may develops after a hemorrhagic or ischemic stroke and results in impairment of the thalamus. There is limited experience about gabapentin in treatment of central pains like CPSP.
In a prospective observational study, the intensity of pain was recorded using the Numeric Rating Scale (NRS) at the entrance to the study. Patients eligible for treating with gabapentin, received gabapentin 300 mg twice-daily. The pain intensity was measured at entrance to the study and after one month using NRS. Decrease of 3 points from the initial NRS considered to be clinically significant.
From a total of 180 primarily screened patients, 84 (44 men and 40 women) were recruited. There was a significant difference between pre-treatment and post-treatment NRS (5.9 ± 2.51 vs. 4.7 ± 3.01; 95% CI: 0.442-1.962, p = 0.002). Fisher's exact test showed no statistically significant effect of clinical and demographic characteristics of patients on their therapeutic response to gabapentin.
Given the safety, efficacy, well tolerability and lack of interaction with other drugs we suggest gabapentin to be more considered as a first line therapy or as add-on therapy for reducing the pain severity in patients with thalamic syndrome.

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Iranian Journal of Pharmaceutical Research
Volume 14, supplement
Winter 2015
Pages 95-101

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