Efficacy of transdermal fentanyl in patients with mechanic neck or back pain

Study population included 50 subjects who were consecutively recruited from Gaziantep University Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation among patients referred for screening of mechanic low back or neck pain. They were diagnosed as cervical or lumbar disc herniation according to their clinical and radiological findings. The demographical features, medications, duration of each medications, concomitant diseases, routine test results were recorded. The severity of pain, health related quality of life was evaluated by Visual Analogue Scale (VAS), Short Form 36 (SF 36) in respectively. Transdermal fentanyl was applied as 12 mu g/h patch after the first evaluation. Mean age of patients with low back pain and neck pain was measured as 43.6 +/- 10.5 and 48.7 +/- 10.6 years, respectively. There were no significant differences between two patients group in respect to age, gender, erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) and c-reactive protein (CRP) levels (p>0.05). There were significant healing in mean scores of role emotional, physical functioning, role physical, bodily pain subscales of SF 36 after treatment in cervical disc herniation group (p<0.05, for all). There were significant healing in mean scores of social functioning physical functioning role physical, bodily pain subscales of SF 36 after treatment in lumbar disc herniation group (p<0.05, for all). Furthermore, the mean scores of VAS were lower than before the treatment in both groups (p<0.00l, for both). Our findings were indicated that 12 mu g/h transdermal fentanyl treatment was evidently effective on quality of life and pain in chronic neck and back pain. The outcome of treating results was similar in two patient groups.