Duloxetine appears to relieve chemotherapy-related neuropathic pain

Paper presented on 5th June at ASCO –

by Bruce Sylvester – The antidepressant duloxetine (Cymbalta ®), relieves  neuropathic pain caused by chemotherapy in 59 percent of patients, researchers report.

“The good news is it worked in the majority of patients. We need to figure out who are the responders. If we can predict who they are, we can target the treatment to the people it’s going to work for,” said lead study author Ellen M. Lavoie Smith, Ph.D., APRN, AOCN, assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Nursing and a researcher at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

As background the authors noted that chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy, a tingling feeling usually felt in the toes, feet, fingers and hands can be both an uncomfortable and, for about 30 percent of patients, a painful sensation. Previous studies have disclosed no effective treatment for this pain.

Duloxetine has previously shown efficacy in relieving painful diabetic neuropathy.

In a study presented on June 5 at the American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting, researchers evaluated 231 subjects reporting painful neuropathy after receiving the chemotherapy drugs oxaliplatin or paclitaxel.

The subjects were randomized to duloxetine or  placebo for five weeks. They reported weekly on their pain levels.

Actively treated subjects received a half dose of duloxetine, 30 milligrams a day, for the first week, and then increased up to 60 mg daily for four more weeks.

The investigators reported that 59 percent of  the duloxetine subjects reported reduced pain, compare to 39 percent of placebo subjects.

The most common side effect was fatigue.

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health’s National Cancer Institute.