• José M Gómez-Argüelles, Pedro E Bermejo, Manuel Lara, Jerónimo Almajano, Esther Aragón, Fernando García del Carrizo, M Victoria Blanco, Francisco J Valenzuela-Rojas, Juan Colás, Octavio Sánchez-Del Valle, M Ángeles Ceballos, M Elena Toribio-Díaz, Germán Latorre-González, Lucienne Costa-Frossard, and M del Mar Morin-Martin.
• Hospital Universitario del Tajo, Aranjuez, Espana.
• Rev Neurol. 2014 Oct 1;59(7):289-93.

IntroductionAlthough different treatments are available for neuropathic pain, these patients are often refractory, which makes it necessary to test treatments that, as they have proven useful in other pathologies, could be effective in neuropathic pain.Patients And MethodsThe study made use of the medical records of patients who had been treated with lacosamide for neuropathic pain in different hospitals in the central area of the peninsula and who fulfilled similar characteristics in terms of refractoriness to other standard treatments, in a follow-up that lasted at least six months, or who had had to stop treatment with that drug for some reason or another. A sample of 114 patients (61 males and 53 females) with a mean age of 60.5 years was obtained from the data.ResultsThe most common causes of neuropathic pain were: diabetic polyneuropathy (31.6%), post-herpes neuralgia (22.8%), trigeminal neuralgia (17.5%), suboccipital and lumbar-radicular neuralgia (both 12.3%). Effectiveness was good/very good in most patients, with the mean score on the visual analogue scale after six months dropping from 7.7 to 4.8. No serious side effects were reported in any of the patients, but in 12 and 10 patients no recordings were made beyond six months, due to ineffectiveness and intolerance to the treatment, respectively.ConclusionsTreatment with lacosamide in neuropathic pain due to different causes could be considered an effective and well-tolerated alternative for patients who fail to respond to standard treatments.

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