Treatment of postherpetic neuralgia: a review of therapeutic options

Treatment of postherpetic neuralgia.

Herpes zoster, a commonly seen condition in daily medical practice, is reported to occur in 10–20% of the population at some time during the lifespan. Chronic, intractable postherpetic neuralgia, a sequela of herpes zoster, presents a clinical challenge. In recent years, effective antiviral agents that can be used in the outpatient setting have been developed for the treatment of herpes zoster ...

Treatment of postherpetic neuralgia: a systematic review of the literature.

OBJECTIVES We wanted to determine whether any treatment had been shown to reduce pain or disability from postherpetic neuralgia (PHN), a common sequela of herpes zoster in elderly patients. STUDY DESIGN We undertook a systematic review of English-language randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of treatments of PHN with evaluation periods longer than 24 hours. DATA SOURCES We systematically sea...

Medications in Treatment of Postherpetic Neuralgia

Received December 17, 2013. Accepted December 17, 2013. Correspondence to: Sang Wook Shin Department of Anesthesia and Pain Medicine, Pusan National University School of Medicine, Beomeo-ri, Mulgeum-eup, Yangsan 626-770, Korea Tel: +82-55-360-2752, Fax: +82-55-360-2149, E-mail: [email protected] This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-...

Evidence-Based Treatment of Postherpetic Neuralgia

Treatment and prevention of postherpetic neuralgia.

There have been 4 recent major advances in the treatment of postherpetic neuralgia (PHN) that are based on the results of randomized, controlled trials. These advances are the demonstrations that gabapentin, the lidocaine patch 5%, and opioid analgesics are efficacious in patients with PHN, and the report that nortriptyline and amitriptyline provide equivalent analgesic benefits for patients wi...