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Gabapentin for the management of chronic pelvic pain in women

  • General Gynecology
  • Published:
Archives of Gynecology and Obstetrics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Background

Chronic pelvic pain (CPP) is a frequent presenting symptom in gynaecology outpatient clinics. Neuromodulator pharmacological agents could be an option for treatment based on its efficacy in treating chronic pain in other conditions.

Purpose

This study aimed at evaluating the efficacy of oral Gabapentin to alleviate pain in women with CPP.

Methods

In a randomized double-blinded placebo-controlled trial, 60 women suffering from chronic pelvic pain were randomly divided into two equal arms. The study group received Gabapentin 300 mg three times daily initially (900 mg), with 300 mg weekly incremental dose till pain was controlled, severe side effects occurred or maximum daily dose of 2700 mg was reached. The Primary outcome was the pain score improvement of CPP, defined as a 30% reduction in the pain score assessed by the 10-cm Visual Analogue Scale compared to baseline score.

Results

In Gabapentin group, pain was significantly reduced at 12 and 24 weeks (mean = 5.12 ± 0.67 and 3.72 ± 0.69, respectively) than in placebo group (mean = 5.9 ± 0.92 and 5.5 ± 1.13, respectively); this difference was significant. At 24 weeks, there was significantly higher proportion of patients reporting 30% or more reduction in pain scores; 19 out of 20 patients (95%) in Gabapentin group compared to 8 out of 14 patients (57.1%) in placebo group. The relative risk for pain after gabapentin treatment was 0.5 with 95% confidence interval = 0.34 to 0.75 and number needed to treat = 3 (p = 0.007). Regarding adverse effects there was significantly higher incidence of dizziness with Gabapentin (26.1%) compared to placebo (3.3%).

Conclusion

Chronic pelvic pain in women may be treated sufficiently with Gabapentin.

Trial registration

The trial was registered in ClinicalTrials.gov registry with clinical trial registration number: NCT02918760.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University Hospitals, Maternity Hospital, Ain Shams University, Abbaseya square, Cairo, Egypt

    M. A. AbdelHafeez, A. Reda, A. Elnaggar, H. EL-Zeneiny & J. M. Mokhles

Authors
  1. M. A. AbdelHafeez
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  2. A. Reda
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  3. A. Elnaggar
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  4. H. EL-Zeneiny
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  5. J. M. Mokhles
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Contributions

AMA: study conception, developed project, interpreted data, critically revised manuscript. RA: protocol development, data interpretation, manuscript writing. EA: data analysis, manuscript writing. E-ZH: project development, revised manuscript. MJM: data collection, manuscript drafting.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to A. Reda.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in this study were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration of the Principles of Ethical Medical Research [last updated in Brazil 2013].

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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AbdelHafeez, M.A., Reda, A., Elnaggar, A. et al. Gabapentin for the management of chronic pelvic pain in women. Arch Gynecol Obstet 300, 1271–1277 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-019-05272-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-019-05272-z

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