Treatment of Fibromyalgia Syndrome with Intravenous Lidocaine

Objective: To conduct a pilot study to determine whether intravenous infusion of lidocaine might further improve the clinical status of fibromyalgia patients already in conventional therapy. Method: Twenty-one patients with a clinical diagnosis of fibromyalgia syndrome were treated conventionally for at least one year. Eleven patients from this group were randomly selected for additional treatment with four sessions of intravenous infusion of lidocaine at weekly intervals. Their clinical status before and after the course of lidocaine therapy was compaired with the clinical status of the remaining 10 patients in the original group who had also continued their conventional therapy but did not receive lidocaine. Outcome measures included visual analog scale [VAS] for pain and patient global improvement. Results: The lidocaine treated and untreated groups did not differ in age or initial VAS scale for pain. There was significantly greater improvement in VAS pain scale among the lidocaine-treated group but global improvement did not meet significance criteria. Conclusions: The data from this pilot study suggest that periodic intravenous infusion of lidocaine may provide additional benefit for fibromyalgia patients already receiving conventional medication. Therefore, a prospective, randomized placebo-controlled study is warranted to assess the value of supplemental lidocaine therapy in fibromyalgia.