RESUMO
BACKGROUND: Although several interventional pain management procedures (IPs) for reducing the acute herpes zoster (HZ)-related pain have shown some level of effectiveness on early pain relief and the prevention of postherpetic neuralgia (PHN), no conclusive evidence has been presented to support their effectiveness. OBJECTIVE: We evaluated the effectiveness of IPs during the acute phase of HZ for reducing HZ-related pain. METHODS: Sixty-one patients with acute HZ were assessed using the pain visual analogue scale (VAS) that ranges from 0 to 10 at the initial visit and after 1, 3 and 6 months. Changes in pain VAS and the incidence of PHN (pain after 1 month) were compared between 2 patient groups: those who received standard therapy with oral antivirals and analgesics (ST, n=38) and those who received standard therapy with IPs (STIPs, n=23). PHN was defined as either "pain of 1 or higher in pain VAS" or "clinically meaningful PHN (pain of 3 or higher in pain VAS)." RESULTS: Although the initial pain VAS level of patients treated with STIPs (5.74) was higher than that of patients receiving ST (4.09), no significant difference in pain VAS number was seen between the 2 groups at 3 months (0.13 vs. 0.17) and 6 months (0.09 vs. 0.03) of follow-up. The incidence of PHN also was not statistically significant different between the 2 groups at 3 (9.5% vs. 8.3%) and 6 months (9.5% vs. 4.2%). A similar trend was observed in the analysis of HZ patients whose pain VAS level was 3 or higher at the initial assessment. CONCLUSION: Standard therapy with early IPs is effective for rapidly reducing HZ-related pain.