A prospective study on clinical efficacy and decisive outcomes of gabapentin versus pregabalin: on pain management in adults with lumbar radiculopathy

Abstract

Lumbar radiculopathy is a condition where there is pain in the lower back that is radiated down to the leg due to compression of the nerve roots that exit the spine. Radiculopathy is most common in lower back although it can occur in any part of the spine. Gabapentin and pregabalin are being used for treating radiculopathy. A Six- month prospective, comparative study to compare efficacy and pain management of gabapentin and pregabalin in adults with lumbar radiculopathy was conducted at the department of orthopedics at Malla Reddy hospital. The patients were randomly selected and were divided into two groups. Group A was given pregabalin, 75mg + methylcobalamin, 500mcg and group B was given gabapentin,100mg + methylcobalamin, 500mcg. The pain intensity scores has baseline (start of the study), 4^th week and 8^th week (end of the study) and assessed. In our study, we found that at the end of 8 weeks, pregabalin and gabapentin helped in significantly reducing pain in patients with lumbar radiculopathy. The mean pain score in patients treated with pregabalin reduced significantly from 8.16 to 2.63 and the mean pain score of gabapentin also reduced from 8.25 to 2.41. The effectiveness of pregabalin was 67.7% and that of gabapentin was 68.3%. When intergroup comparison was done between group A (pregabalin) and B(gabapentin), the difference in reduction of mean pain scores were not statistically significant during all the follow ups. It concludes that both pregabalin and gabapentin are equally efficacious in management of pain associated with lumbar radiculopathy.