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Original Research

Topical ophthalmic amethocaine alleviates trigeminal neuralgia pain

       

Authors Brill S, Ben-Abraham R, Goor-Aryeh I 

Published 12 December 2010 Volume 2010:3 Pages 155—157

DOI https://doi.org/10.2147/LRA.S14281

Review by Single anonymous peer review

Peer reviewer comments 4

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Silviu Brill1, Ron Ben-Abraham1, Itay Goor-Aryeh2
1Pain Clinic, Tel-Aviv Medical Center, Tel-Aviv, Israel; 2Pain Clinic Sheba Medical Center, Tel-Hashomer, Israel

Background: Trigeminal neuralgia (TGN) is a challenging pain syndrome.
Aim: To test the effectiveness of local instillation of ophthalmic solution of amethocaine in relieving the pain of TGN.
Methods: We performed an open-label prospective study in 40 consecutive currently treated patients suffering from TGN with a reported visual analog scale (VAS) >8 (severe pain). The patients received two drops of amethocaine 1% instilled on the cornea ipsilateral to the painful side. Pain score assessment using VAS was recorded pre- and post-treatment.
Results: A total of 32 (80%) patients reported a significant reduction in pain 10 minutes after drops instillation as compared with pre-treatment pain score. Pre-treatment VAS score was 8.53 ± 0.6 as compared with 4.78 ± 1.83 post-amethocaine treatments (P < 0.00001).
Conclusion: Topical ophthalmic instillation of amethocaine 1% can be considered as an immediate effective method for pain paroxysm of TGN.

Keywords: amethocaine, trigeminal neuralgia, pain, opthalmic

 

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