Advances in Skin, Wound Care and Tissue Science

Biography

Biography: Lydia Zomparelli

Abstract

Statement of the Problem: Wound Pain generates significant suffering, reduced quality of life, and reduced productivity for patients. At present, opioids are the commonest modality. Systemic opioids have recently come under scrutiny given the world wide epidemic of accidental overdoses. Topical opioids have demonstrated only marginal analgesia in 3 of 8 randomized
controlled studies, and their onset of action occurs 60 minutes of their application. Furthermore, recent studies are demonstrating that opioids also inhibit wound healing. The discovery of the endocannabinoid system throughout the integumentary provides a valid and logical scientific platform to consider the use of TMC based medicines in wound management.
Methodology & Theoretical Orientation: A series of n=1 trials of patients with painful wounds reporting greater than 5/10 pain were offered treatment with TMC based medicines that were applied directly to their wound beds. More than 20 patients were treated and their wound etiology’s included Pyoderma Gangrenosum, Venous leg ulcers, ischemic ulcers, vasculitis, acute
zoster, burns, and skin cancers. All patients experienced more than 50% pain relief within 5-10 minutes of topical instillation onto their wound beds. The duration of analgesia ranged between 4-6 hours. An opioid sparing effect was noted in the majority of cases. No adverse reactions, neither systemic nor local, were observed or reported by patients.
Conclusion & Significance: As a safe, inexpensive, self-titrated, and non-invasive treatment modality, TMC based medicines hold great potential in wound management and may help to curb the current world-wide opioid crisis. TMC based medicines may be useful in all wound classes. TMC based medicines have the potential to deal with both baseline wound pain and wound-related breakthrough pain such as procedural pain.