The study was conducted to find out effective treatment for patients having pain due osteoarthritis in one or both knees.
The treatment tested was providing one full Lidoderm patch in the front of the knee and one third patch on the back of the affected knee. The study result showed that after six weeks of treatment majority of the group of people who underwent the treatment reported about 30% pain relief or more. To the other group the treatment was done with Celebrex(R) for knee pain associated with osteoarthritis. This group also reported that a majority experienced 30% or more relief in the pain intensity.Lidoderm is an approved pain relief agent that uses a lidocaine patch 5%. The patch produces analgesic effects by penetrating the epidermal and dermal layers of the skin, but need only to be applied on intact skin. The FDA approves up to three patches of Lidoderm applied to a total of 12 hrs in a 24 hrs period. Its efficacy in pain removal except for in post-herpetic neuralgia was not known before the present study.
The results of the study came out in a press release by the firm Endo Pharmaceuticals in 24th Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Pain Society.
