Will ion-channel blockers be useful for management of nonneuropathic pain?

Abstract

For neuropathic pain, there is evidence that the analgesic effect of intravenous sodium-channel blockers is robust and dose dependent. Oral agents are less impressive, but efficacious nonetheless, especially at higher doses. Despite the evidence from animal studies for a role of sodium channels in inflammatory hyperalgesia, the clinical evidence of analgesic effect of oral and intravenous sodium channel blockers in both acute and chronic nonneuropathic pain is equivocal. The results to date from human experimental pain models suggest a lack of effect of systemic lidocaine on acute nociceptive pain and that the effect on cutaneous hyperalgesia is modest, at best. Furthermore, the literature suggests that the systemic lidocaine analgesia is both dose and diagnosis dependent.