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Tapentadol Prolonged Release as Used in Clinical Practice in Patients with Severe Chronic Tumor Pain
Schwenke K2*, Agbalaka A1 and Litzenburger B31Practice for Specialized Pain Therapy, Kassel, Germany
2Director of Medical Affairs, Knowledge Management, Grunenthal GmbH, Aachen, Germany
3Medical Manager, Medical Affairs, Knowledge Management, Grunenthal GmbH, Aachen, Germany
- *Corresponding Author:
- Karla Schwenke
Grunenthal GmbH
Germany Operations
52099 Aachen, Germany
Tel: +49 241 569-1381
Fax: +49 241 569-2875
E-mail: karla.schwenke@grunenthal.com
Received date: Octomber 09, 2014, Accepted date: February 23, 2015, Published date: March 03, 2015
Citation: Schwenke K, Agbalaka A, Litzenburger B (2015) Tapentadol Prolonged Release as Used in Clinical Practice in Patients with Severe Chronic Tumor Pain. J Palliat Care Med 5:211. doi: 10.4172/2165-7386.1000211
Copyright: © 2015 Schwenke K, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provid`ed the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Objective: This subgroup analysis of a non-interventional study that included general practitioners and internists, assessed efficacy and safety of tapentadol prolonged release (Palexia® retard) as used in routine clinical practice in Germany for the treatment of severe chronic tumor pain. Study design: Data of all patients in the study cohort who were exclusively diagnosed with ‘tumor pain’ (n=143) were included in this analysis. Data collection during the 3-month observation period included previous analgesic and concomitant treatment, tapentadol PR dosage, pain intensity, sleep and quality of life parameters and tolerability of tapentadol PR. Results: A total of 96.5% of all patients with tumor pain had already received analgesic long-term treatment before initiation of tapentadol PR therapy, 49.0% of those had received strong opioids. Switching to tapentadol PR resulted in a mean pain reduction of 3.8 points from 7.1 ± 1.4 at baseline to 3.3 ± 1.9 at end of observation (NRS-11, 11-point pain scale; descriptive p value<0.001). At end of observation, 67.4% of the patients had experienced a clinically relevant pain relief of >50%, and 89.9% of the patients attained either their desired pain reduction and/or an additional individual treatment goal; both goals had been predefined at start of tapentadol PR treatment. This was accompanied by a significant decrease in pain-related impairments of daily activities and an improvement in quality of life (descriptive p value<0.001) with an overall good tolerability of tapentadol PR. Treatment with tapentadol PR was assessed positively by physicians and patients. Conclusions: In this routine clinical practice non-interventional study, treatment with tapentadol PR resulted in effective and well-tolerated relief of severe tumor pain and improvement of pain-related impairments of daily activities and quality of life. Tapentadol PR, an innovative effective analgesic, may thus provide an alternative treatment option in the management of tumor pain.
