The Effectiveness And Safety Of Dorsal Root Ganglion Pulsed Radiofrequency Combined PCEA In Treating Postherpetic Neuralgia

Objective:This study sought to evaluate the clinical effectiveness and safety of dorsal root ganglion pulsed radiofrequency combined patient controlled epidural analgesia(PCEA) in treating patients with postherpetic neuralgia(PHN).Methods : A total of 60 old patients with PHN who came from Anhui Medical University First Affiliated Hospital Department of pain participated in the study. The patients were randomly allocated into 2 groups: PCEA group(group A, n=30), dorsal root ganglion pulsed radiofrequency combined PCEA group(group B, n=30). Pain intensity was rated on Short-form Mc Gill pain questionnaire(SF-MPQ) at pretreatment and 1 week, 1 month, and 3 months at post-treatment. Brief Pain Inventory(BPI) was applied at pretreatment and 3 months at post-treatment in evaluating the life quality of patients. While adverse reactions of operation and drugs were also recorded.Results: 1. There were no significant difference in age, sex composition, duration of disease and the involvement of segment between two group.2. Short form Mc Gill Pain Questionnaire(SF-MPQ) score results: Before treatment, the SF-MPQ indexs, including pain rating index(PRI) score, visual analogue scale(VAS), present pain index(PPI) score and the SF-MPQ total score had no significant difference(P > 0.05) in the two groups; However, there were statistically significant decreases(P < 0.01)in the SF-MPQ scores for all post-treatment time points when compared with the pretreatment values in the two groups. The group B produced a significantly greater reduction in the SF-MPQ scores when compared with the group A at 1 week, 1 month and 3 month after the treatment(T1, P<0.05; T2, T3, P<0.01).3. The brief pain assessment scale(BPI) score results: The baseline of life quality,including general activity, mood, walking ability, work, relations with other people, sleep, and life enjoyment were no statistically significant differences between two group(P>0.05), For patients in the two groups, treatment resulted in improvement of quality-of-life parameters(P <0.01),Otherwise The BPI results for B group were significantly lower than those for group A at 3 months after treatment(P<0.01).4. Adverse reactions : There was no significant difference in incidence of adverse reactions between the two groups.Conclusions: The results of this study suggest that: 1.both two treatments have evident effect for PHN, 2. pulsed radiofrequency combined PCEA is better in reducing the pain and improving the patients quality of life, so it is a relative effective and safe for treating PHN.