Anesthesia & Clinical Research
Open Access

Emily Melikman

Publications

• Review Article
  Lidocaine Infusion: A Promising Therapeutic Approach for Chronic Pain
  Author(s): Enas Kandil, Emily Melikman and Bryon Adinoff Enas Kandil, Emily Melikman and Bryon Adinoff
  
  Opioid abuse is a national epidemic in the United States, where it is estimated that a prescription drug overdose death occurs every 19 minutes. While opioids are highly effective in acute and subacute pain control, their use for treatment of chronic pain is controversial. Chronic opioids use is associated with tolerance, dependency, hyperalgesia. Although there are new strategies and practice guidelines to reduce opioid dependence and opioid prescription drug overdose, there has been little focus on development of opioid-sparing therapeutic approaches. Lidocaine infusion has been shown to be successful in controlling pain where other agents have failed. The opioid sparing properties of lidocaine infusion added to its analgesic and antihyperalgesic properties make lidocaine infusion a viable option for pain control in opioid dependent patients. In this review, we provide an overview o.. View More»
  DOI: 10.4172/2155-6148.1000697

  Abstract PDF

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