botulinum as a toxin for treating post-herpetic neuralgia

Background: we aimed to study the curative effects of botulinum a toxin (btx-a) on the treatment of post-herpetic neuralgia (pnh). methods: we enrolled 58 pnh patients and treated them with hypodermic injection of btx-a in xiangyang no.1 people’s hospital, hubei university of medicine, hubei, china. we measured and compared the visual analog score (vas), neuropathy pain scale (nps), quality of life scale (sf-36) score, pnh seizure severity degree, seizure dura-tion, frequency of attack and the use of painkillers before and after treatment. we used spss13 software package for statistical analysis. values were expressed by mean± standard deviation. p<0.05 indicated a significant difference and p<0.01 indicated an obvious significant difference. results: attack frequency, attack duration and attack severity were all significantly lower after treatment (p<0.01). the use of painkillers reduced after treatment (p<0.01) and we observed very few adverse reactions associated with btx-a injection. conclusion: the use of btx-a for treating post-herpetic neuralgia produced very promising results with very few adverse reactions. btx-a can be considered as a valid approach in the treatment of pnh, especially in patients that do not respond well to painkillers.