Efficacy of transdermal fentanyl on quality of life and pain in patients with neck and low back pain

Pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage. Chronic pain is a pain that is expected to continue for longer or after tissue healing process. It has been suggested that the duration of chronic pain was 3 or 6 months. Adjuvant analgesics and fentanyl occassionally preferred in management of chronic musculoskeletal 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 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, rutine 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 ?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=0.020, p<0.001, p=0.005, p=0.007 respectively).There were significant healing in mean scores of social functioning, physical functioning, role physical, bodily pain subscales of SF 36 after treatment in lomber disc herniation group (p<0.001, p=0.002, p=0.045, p<0.001 respectively). Furthermore, the mean scores of VAS vas lower than before the treatment in both groups (p<0.001, for both).Our findings were indicated that 12 ?g/h transdermal fentanyl treatment was evidently effective on quality of life and pain in chronic neck and back pain. In conclusion transdermal fentanyl may be a good alternative in management of chronic musculoskeletal pain.Key words: Chronic pain, Fentanyl, Opioids.