The trial team found that taking pregabalin did not help people who had bone pain caused by cancer.
The trial was in 2 parts. First people had their pain assessed by a doctor or a nurse.
If their pain measured 4 or more on a scale of 0 to10 they took part in the treatment part of the trial.
The trial was randomised. This means people were put into one of 2 treatment groups by a computer. The treatment looked the same for both groups. This is called a double blind trial.
233 people took part. Everybody had radiotherapy, and then
- 116 people had pregabalin tablets twice a day for 4 weeks
- 117 people had dummy tablets (placebos
) twice a day for 4 weeks
The researcher’s main aims were
- For people’s worst pain to reduce by 2 points on the pain scale after the treatment
- For people to be on the same dose (or less) of their painkillers after the treatment
They found that this happened for
- 45 people in the pregabalin group
- 47 people in the dummy drug group
The researchers also looked at
- How often people were in pain
- How much pain interfered with people’s daily life and activity
- If people had sudden pain despite having painkillers (breakthrough pain)
- People’s mood during treatment
- Any side effects from treatment
The researchers found no difference between the 2 groups for
- How often people were in pain
- How much pain interfered with daily life and activity.
The people taking pregabalin said their mood improved and they had less breakthrough pain. But the researchers pointed out that numbers of people who reported this was still not high enough for them to be confident in this finding. They also pointed out that pregabalin is a treatment for anxiety.
People in both groups had side effects.
- 27 people in the pregabalin group
- 24 people in the dummy drug group
The most common side effects included
- Feeling and being sick
- Problems with thinking and memory
- Tiredness (fatigue)
- Pain
The researchers felt that most of these side effects were due to people’s cancer and not because of the treatment
So, pregabalin is not useful for people with pain caused by cancer in their bones.
The researchers would like to see more trials for people with advanced cancer. They also think that pregabalin could possibly work for people who have bone pain and nerve pain (neuropathic pain). They think a future trial looking at this would be interesting.
We have based this summary on information from the research team. The information they sent us has been reviewed by independent specialists (peer reviewed ) and published in a medical journal. The figures we quote above were provided by the trial team who did the research. We have not analysed the data ourselves.
