Journal of Pain Research (Feb 2023)
Efficacy and Safety of Pulsed Radiofrequency in Herpes Zoster Related Trigeminal Neuralgia: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
Abstract
Chenhui Wang,1 Zhi Dou,2 Mengwei Yan,3 Baoguo Wang1 1Department of Anesthesiology, Sanbo Brain Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Pain Management, Xuanwu Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Center of Respiratory Medicine, China-Japan Friendship Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Baoguo Wang, Department of Anesthesiology, Sanbo Brain Hospital, Capital Medical University, No. 50 Yikesong Street, Haidian District, Beijing, 100095, People’s Republic of China, Tel/Fax +86 10 6285 6766, Email [email protected]: Pulsed radiofrequency (PRF) is a neuromodulation technique for neuropathic pain. However, the effects of PRF on zoster-related trigeminal neuralgia (TN) remain unclear. The purpose of this meta-analysis is to investigate the efficacy and safety of PRF in the management of zoster-related TN.Patients and Methods: We searched PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, Chinese Biomedical Database (CBM), Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), and Wanfang for randomized controlled trials from their inception to August 2022. The primary clinical outcomes included pain intensity and adverse events. Secondary clinical outcomes included pain remission rate, trigeminal postherpetic neuralgia (TPHN) incidence, rescue analgesic dose, sleep quality, and quality of life (QoL).Results: Eight studies with 788 participants were included for final analysis. PRF group exhibited lower pain scores (week 1: MD − 2.10, 95% CI − 3.28 to − 0.93, P=0.0005; week 4: MD − 1.56, 95% CI − 2.60 to − 0.51, P=0.003; week 12: MD − 1.52, 95% CI − 2.68 to − 0.35, P=0.01), lower risk of TPHN incidence (RR 0.22, 95% CI 0.06 to 0.81, P=0.02) and better sleep quality (week 4: MD − 2.52, 95% CI − 3.28 to − 1.77, P< 0.01; week 12: MD − 2.25, 95% CI − 2.90 to − 1.60, P< 0.01) than control group. Besides, pain remission rate (RR 1.08, 95% CI 0.93 to 1.26, P=0.31) and adverse events (RR 0.95, 95% CI 0.71 to 1.27, P=0.74) were comparable in both groups.Conclusion: PRF is an effective and safe treatment and it yields better effects in pain relief, improvement of sleep quality, and prevention of developing TPHN. Although PRF provides a comparable pain remission rate with the control, it is still a preferred and alternative treatment for relieving zoster-related facial pain.Keywords: herpes zoster, trigeminal nerve, neuropathic pain, neuromodulation
