Introduction: Pain, depression, anxiety, and sleep disturbance reduce Quality-of-Life (QoL) in painful diabetic peripheral neuropathy (pDPN).1 Prevalence of affective distress in pDPN is 51.4%.2 It is unclear if emotional distress is impacted by analgesic treatment.3 This analysis evaluates the effect of high concentration capsaicin topical system (HCCTS) on affective distress, QoL and sleep in clinical practice, to analyze predictors of treatment response.
Method: Data of all pDPN patients treated with ≥ 1 HCCTS and followed up for a year, were taken from the German Pain eRegistry (283 pain centers). Assessments included pain rating (VAS), Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21), Veterans RAND-12, modified pain disability index (mPDI) sleep item and suicidal ideation.
Results: This analysis included 826 patients. Patients with strong/severe symptoms of depression, anxiety, stress (DAS-21) decreased from 33.6%, 38.3 %; 47.5% at baseline to 4.7%, 6.5%, 4.6% after treatment 4, respectively. All results showed significant improvements in patients who received 4 HCCTS treatments (Table 1). Tolerability was consistent with the HCCTS profile.
Conclusion: Ongoing HCCTS treatment results in progressive improvement across assessments of pain, affective distress, sleep, suicidal ideation and QoL.
M.A. Ueberall: Research Support; AbbVie Inc. Speaker's Bureau; Almirall, S.A., GlaxoSmithKline plc. Research Support; Grünenthal. Speaker's Bureau; Kyowa Kirin Co., Ltd., Nestlé Health Science, Teva. Research Support; Dermapharm, Recordati. Speaker's Bureau; Esanum. T. Quandel: None. S. Engelen: Employee; Grunenthal GmbH. R. Freitas: Employee; Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation, Grunenthal S.A. L. García: Employee; Grunenthal Pharma S.A. S. Allen: Employee; Averitas Pharma, Inc., Lundbeck. M. Eerdekens: Employee; Grünenthal GmbH.
