Options in topical therapies in the management of patients with acute pain.

The traditional cornerstones of analgesic therapy for patients with acute pain have been oral therapies; however, all oral agents exhibit a variety of potentially dose-limiting or intolerable adverse effects in patients. Elderly patients and those with concomitant conditions already being managed with multiple systemic drugs may be particularly susceptible to systemic toxicities with oral analgesic therapies. Topical agents offer an alternative to oral modalities and can effectively treat patients with acute pain while offering lower systemic absorption and conferring little risk of systemic toxicity. The objective of this article is to review the therapeutic usefulness of available topical therapies in their most thoroughly investigated applications, the treatment of patients with acute musculoskeletal and herpetic pain. For example, although heating pads/wraps and cold packs are widely used to alleviate pain associated with sprains, strains, and contusions, evidence of the effectiveness of these methods is lacking. However, there are sufficient data supporting the use of various topical formulations of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) for these indications (ketoprofen gel or patch, ibuprofen gel or cream, and diclofenac gel or patch), and demonstrating markedly less patient risk of systemic toxicity than is associated with oral NSAID therapy. A ketoprofen patch was shown to be effective and well tolerated in the treatment of patients with tendinopathies. In the treatment of acute neck or low back pain, cold and heat therapies have demonstrated limited effectiveness for patients, and the efficacy of topical NSAIDs has not been established. Use of topical NSAID therapy has been useful in reducing acute-phase herpes zoster pain, and the lidocaine 5% patch has been shown to reduce acute herpetic pain intensity once lesions have healed (the patch cannot be applied to open skin lesions). Topical analgesics represent an alternative treatment modality for patients experiencing acute pain who cannot or choose not to take oral therapies.