Efficacy of various forms of capsaicin in the treatment of neuropathic pain – literature review

Introduction and Objective.Pain is defined as a subjective, unpleasant sensation resulting from actual or potential tissue damage or nervous system malfunction.If left untreated or treated ineffectively, it leads to serious complications.Neuropathic pain is a particularly difficult type of pain to manage.The drugs used in its treatment include capsaicin (CP) -vanillyl amide, an antagonist of the transient receptor potential V1 (TRPV1) receptors, used for thousands of years in folk medicine and cooking.Review Methods.The PubMed database was searched using the terms 'capsaicin', 'pain", and 'neuropathic', and the filters 'Clinical Trial' and 'Randomized Controlled Trial'.A total of 94 articles were identified, 27 of which were eligible for review.Brief description of the state of knowledge.Capsaicin, due to its unique mechanism of action, stands out from other analgesics.Its use in everyday clinical practice has been confirmed in many clinical studies.However, there are still medical disciplines in which its usage is unexplored and should be investigated.Moreover, when taking capsaicin, clinicians should also pay attention to possible side-effects.Summary.The discussed studies indicate the effectiveness of CP, used topically in the treatment of HIV-associated distal sensory polyneuropathy (HDSP), spinal cord injury, focal neuropathic pain, lumbosacral pain, post-traumatic neuropathic pain, cancer-related neuropathic pain, painful diabetic neuropathy (PDN), postherpetic neuralgia (PHN) and phantom limb pain.Characterized by a good safety profile, CP increasingly appears in the guidelines of scientific societies, and research on its use often goes beyond the issues described.