Efficacy of intravenous magnesium in neuropathic pain.

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Analgesics in this randomized controlled trial publication.

Postherpetic neuralgia is a complication of acute herpes zoster characterized by severe pain and paraesthesia in the skin area affected by the initial infection.

There is evidence that the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor is involved in the development of hypersensitivity states and it is known that magnesium blocks the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor.

Who Took Part

The age groups tagged for this paper are middle-aged adults, older adults and people over 80, both men and women.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled and crossover study.

Because people in this Analgesics study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

As a double-blind Analgesics study, the assignments were hidden from both participants and investigators until the end.

The comparison arm used a placebo, so changes seen with Analgesics could be set against what happens without it.

Each person switched between Analgesics and the comparison at some point, usually with a gap in between.

A double-blind, placebo-controlled, cross-over study was conducted in which magnesium sulphate was administered as an i.v. infusion.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Analgesics, Herpes Zoster, Magnesium Sulfate, N-Methylaspartate, Neuralgia and Pain Measurement.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Analgesics.

Results are reported in around 3 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2002 (British journal of anaesthesia), a journal based in England.

More context: all human trials.