Abstract
Intravenous lidocaine has been used to provide analgesia in patients with neuropathic pain; however, no guidelines exist regarding this procedure as the fi rst choice. This study was performed to evaluate the effect of lidocaine infusion, especially on neuropathic pain, using the quantitative immediate pain-relieving measurement system Pain Vision®, which indicates the degree of pain in addition to the visual analogue scale (VAS) method. Using VAS and Pain Vision®, we evaluated pain intensity pre- and postintravenous administration of lidocaine in four postherpetic neuralgia patients and four other neuropathic patients. Intravenous lidocaine resulted in a decrease in both VAS and pain intensity measured by Pain Vision® to some extent. We demonstrated the analgesic effect of intravenous lidocaine on neuropathic pain using Pain Vision® in addition to VAS. Although we showed signifi cant immediate pain-relieving effect, we need further study to test the long-term pain-relieving effect of intravenous lidocaine.
