Influence of Skin Hydration on Anesthetic Effect of Lidocaine Tape in Hemodialysis Patients

Abstract

We surveyed the current use of lidocaine tape in hemodialysis (HD) patients and evaluated the condition of their skin.Nearly 80% of them complained of pain on needle insertion,and the evaluation of their skin condition indicated that the stratum corneum moisture content was significantly lower than that of healthy volunteers.In view of this,we investigated skin hydration as a simple method of enhancing lidocaine absorption in HD patients.Skin hydration reduced the amount of pain on needle insertion in half of the 16 HD patients.It stayed about the same or increased slightly in the other half.
To examine the effect of skin hydration in more detail,we investigated lidocaine concentrations in porcine ear skin and found that the skin lidocaine concentrations were significantly increased (8.97±2.44μg/cm² vs.24.51±12.26μg/cm² after 30 min of application) by skin hydration.We feel that it could be an effective means of alleviating the pain experienced by HD patients.