RESUMO
Purpose: Despite its well-acknowledged analgesic potential, curcumin's low bioavailability has been recognized. Piperine, a substance naturally contained in pepper, has been known for its effect on increasing curcumin bioavailability. To investigate the analgesic potential of curcumin and piperine addition to curcumin patch used as adjuvant therapy in the management of acute postoperative orofacial pain. Patients and Methods: This pragmatic trial recruited 75 patients that underwent oromaxillofacial surgery at Unpad Dental Hospital, Bandung, Indonesia. Research participants were randomly assigned to three different groups: the first group that did not receive any intervention other than the post-operative standard treatment (POST), the second group that received POST and non-piperine curcumin patch, and the third group that received POST and piperine-combined curcumin patch. Participants' pain intensity was evaluated by using the face, leg, activity, cry, and consolability (FLACC) pain scale and salivary prostaglandin-E2 (PGE2) level for two-time points, which were eight hours apart. All data were gathered and analyzed to compare the within and between-group differences. Results: Within groups comparison of the FLACC scores for two evaluation points showed significant differences for all groups (p < 0.01). For salivary PGE2 analysis, a comparison of the non-piperine group to the piperine group also showed significant results. Yet, when all three groups were compared, regardless of the differences, the results were not statistically significant. Conclusion: Despite of the proven efficacy of curcumin patch, the addition of piperine to the curcumin patch in the current study did not provide any significant effects. Further investigation is of importance.
RESUMO
OBJECTIVE: Acute pain is one of the most common pains experienced by post-cleft lip or cleft surgery patients regardless of the administration of analgesic agents. This current study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of a curcumin patch as an adjuvant analgesic agent on the post-cleft lip and cleft palate surgery patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Fifty-five (33 male; 22 female) participants aged 36 months or less are recruited in this pragmatic trial and randomly assigned to a control group, where no curcumin patch was applied; or the experimental group, where the participants wore a curcumin patch with a dosage of 100 mg. All participants (regardless of the group) received a standardized postsurgery analgesic agent immediately after the surgery was completed. A face, leg, activity, cry, and consolability (FLACC) scale was used to evaluate pain levels for three subsequent time points. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS: All data were then analyzed by using the Mann-Whitney U test to compare the mean differences between the two groups. RESULTS: The results of the current study revealed that there was no significant difference found between the control and the experimental group when mean pain scores were compared for the first evaluation time. Yet, there was a significant difference (p < 0.01) between the two groups' mean pain scores on the second evaluation time. CONCLUSION: Curcumin patch was found to be effective when used as an adjuvant analgesic agent to reduce acute-orofacial postsurgery pain in cleft lip and cleft surgery patients.
