Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0184567 (acute pain)
 3,962 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Previous studies have shown that intravenous acyclovir does modify rash development, reduce viral shedding and alleviate acute pain in herpes zoster. To assess the clinical efficacy of an oral dosage regimen with 800 mg acyclovir five times daily, double-blind, placebo-controlled studies were carried out at three centres within the U.K., using a common protocol. According to inclusion criteria (immune competent patients over 60 years of age with a clinical diagnosis of herpes zoster with rash of no more than 72 h duration, no previous systemic antiviral treatment, no history of renal insufficiency) 205 patients were recruited after they had given their informed consent. Patients were randomly assigned to receive either two 400 mg tablets acyclovir (41 men, 59 women) or matching placebo (46 men, 59 women) five times daily for seven days. Treatment was predominantly domiciliary based. According to clinical assessment and pain score acyclovir recipients showed a significant benefit in terms of reduction in rash progression if treatment was started within 48 h of the onset of rash, and alleviation of pain during the acute phase of herpes zoster. Overall, the number of patients developing extradermal lesions was significantly lower in the acyclovir group than in the placebo group (p = 0.02). However, there were no significant differences in rash progression and pain response in patients with herpes zoster affecting the ophthalmic division of the trigeminal nerve in patients who received acyclovir (n = 21) compared to those who received placebo (n = 32). 12 acyclovir and 13 placebo recipients reported symptoms, predominantly gastrointestinal in nature, possibly or probably related to therapy.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
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PMID:Oral acyclovir for acute herpes zoster infections in immune-competent adults. 329 71

Using a portable infusion pump, intravenous opioid patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) permits a patient to self-deliver a small bolus of opioid to achieve prompt relief without over sedation. Use of PCA for pain management is increasing in hospitals, largely because it can provide equivalent or better analgesia than conventional nurse-administered opioid analgesia, and patients are more satisfied with its use. There is no decisive pharmacological or clinical argument for the choice of one opioid rather than another. Thus, morphine remains the most frequently used opioid in PCA. The adjunction of non-opioid drugs to morphine in the PCA reservoir is still very controversial. A new investigational PCA transdermal system using iontophoresis to deliver fentanyl seems to provide an adequate pain control with the advantages of needle-free, preprogrammed, self-contained device. Whatever drug or device used, the overall success of the PCA technique relies mainly on the expert supervision of nurses or anesthesiologists in an Acute Pain Service. Indeed, PCA is effective and significant only on the condition that there is careful preoperative patient education and strict postoperative monitoring. In addition, preoperative patient selection allows to exclude patients with evidence of cognitive dysfunction or physical disabilities, making the use of the patient-controlled device impossible. Caution is required among patients with respiratory or renal insufficiency. In the future, the indispensable improvement in the management of postoperative pain should lead to a greater expansion of PCA. However, more pharmaco-economic evaluations will be needed on the cost-effectiveness issue.
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PMID:Patient-controlled analgesia. 1630 60