• Alvise Martini, Giovanna Del Balzo, Vittorio Schweiger, Michele Zanzotti, Alessandro Picelli, Massimo Parolini, Eris Chinellato, Stefano Tamburin, and Enrico Polati.
• Department of Surgery, Dentistry, Maternal and Infant Sciences, Pain Therapy Center, Verona University Hospital, Policlinico GB Rossi, Verona, Italy - alvise.martini@univr.it.
• Minerva Med. 2018 Oct 1; 109 (5): 344-351.

BackgroundLocalized neuropathic pain (LNP) is a subgroup of neuropathic pain characterized by consistent and circumscribed area(s) of maximum pain, associated with negative or positive sensory signs and/or spontaneous symptoms characteristic of NP. Lidocaine medicated plasters (LMP) have shown to be effective in pain relief in selective LNP syndromes.MethodsWe collected data of 130 patients in our database with LNP syndromes who used LMP.ResultsForty-one patients out of 130 patients (32%) were treated with antiepileptics, antidepressants and opioids without improvement and/or with intolerable adverse effects and are not assuming systemic therapy anymore. Globally, during the 12 months follow-up, 15% of patients reached a complete pain relief without any systemic therapy, mainly in trigeminal and post-herpetic neuralgia (P=0.009), 38% of patients reduced analgesic drug consumption with the highest reduction in radiculopathy, post-herpetic neuralgia and trigeminal neuralgia. Topical and transient adverse effects, such as itching or local erythema, were seen in 19/130 (14.6%) patients; 7 of these patients (5.4%) needed to discontinue the treatment due to the occurrence of adverse effects. The dropout rate on global population (excluding cured and lost to follow-up) was 45%, and the main cause of dropouts was the inefficacy of treatment in the first 3 months of therapy with LMP.ConclusionsLMP treatment is safe and worth consideration also as add-on therapy in order to reduce analgesic drug consumption in selected LNP.

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