• Pain Med · Aug 2012

    Randomized Controlled Trial

    Early pain reduction can predict treatment response: results of integrated efficacy analyses of a once-daily gastroretentive formulation of gabapentin in patients with postherpetic neuralgia.

    • Mark P Jensen, Ping H Hsu, and Geertrui F Vanhove.
    • Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA 98104, USA. mjensen@uw.edu
    • Pain Med. 2012 Aug 1; 13 (8): 105910661059-66.

    ObjectiveThe objectives of this study were to identify and determine the validity of early decision criteria following once-daily gastroretentive gabapentin (G-GR) treatment in patients with postherpetic neuralgia (PHN).DesignIn two placebo-controlled studies, 279 patients were randomized to 1,800 mg G-GR and 270 to placebo with the evening meal; patients underwent a 2-week dose titration, followed by 8 weeks of stable dosing, and 1 week of dose tapering. Patients.  Adults with PHN for ≥6 months and an average baseline Numerical Pain Rating Scale (NPRS) score of ≥4 were included in the study.Outcome MeasuresPercent change from baseline to week 10 in NPRS scores and the percentage of responders (defined as ≥30% reduction in NPRS scores from baseline to week 10) were determined.MethodsPatients randomized to G-GR were categorized at each week based on their percent pain reduction up to that week, and for each category, the percentage of week 10 responders was computed. For several early-improvement criteria, the percentage of week 10 responders, odds ratios for achieving week 10 treatment response, sensitivity, and specificity were calculated.ResultsThere was a significant positive association between early pain reduction and week 10 treatment response. Pain reduction of <10% at week 5 of G-GR treatment was the best early predictor of lack of endpoint response, with only 8% of these patients moving on to become week 10 treatment responders.ConclusionsEarly response was a reliable predictor of final response. This approach holds promise for aiding clinicians in decision making regarding the need for alternative or supplemental treatment during G-GR therapy for PHN.Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…