Pharmacotherapies for Central Post-Stroke Pain: A Systematic Review and Network Meta-Analysis

Table 1

Characteristics of the included trials.

Study ID	Sample size	Cause of pain	RCT design	Intervention	Administration method of the intervention and treatment duration	Control	Pain scale	Assessment time
[19]	16	Stroke or spinal cord injury	Cross-over, 3-week washout	Lidocaine, 5 mg/kg/day	IV; 3 weeks	0.9% saline	100-VAS	Until post-infusion
[20]	16	Stroke or spinal cord injury	Cross-over, 3-week washout	Morphine (9-30 mg/day;  mg per day in average)	IV; 3 weeks	0.9% saline	100-VAS	Until post-infusion
[21]	20	Stroke	Cross-over, 2-week washout	Naloxone, 8 mg/session	IV; 2 weeks	0.9% saline	100-VAS	Until post-infusion
[22]	42	Stroke	Cross-over, 2-week washout	Levetiracetam, started at 1000 mg and increased every 2 weeks to 3000 mg	Oral; 8 weeks	Placebo pills	10-NRS	Post-treatment
[12]	58	Stroke	Parallel	Prednisolone, 10 mg/day for 2 months	Oral; 4 weeks	No prednisolone	100-VAS	Post-treatment
[23]	219	Stroke	Parallel	Pregabalin, 150-600 mg/day	Oral; 12 weeks	Placebo pills	10-NRS	Post-treatment
[24]	39	Acute thalamic stroke	Parallel	Amitriptyline, 10-75 mg	Oral; 52 weeks	Placebo pills	NA	Censor point within one year
[25]	15	Stroke	Cross-over, 1-week washout	Amitriptyline, 12.5-50 mg	Oral; 4 weeks	Carbamazepine (200-800 mg) or placebo pills	10-step verbal scale	Post-treatment
[13]	26	Ischemic stroke in MCA territory; ICH stroke in basal ganglia	Parallel	Etanercept, 25 mg	Peri-spinal; 2 weeks	0.9% saline	100-VAS or 10-NRS	Post-treatment
Vesterguard et al., 2001 [26]	27	Stroke	Cross-over, 2-week washout	Lamotrigine, tapered from 25 mg/day to 200 mg/d	Oral; 8 weeks	Placebo pills	10-NRS	Post-treatment
Eun Young et al., 2016 [11]	21	First-ever stroke	Parallel	Pamidronate, 60 mg/session, 3 infusions every two days for six days	IV; 2 weeks	Oral prednisolone 1 mg/kg/day	100-VAS	Post-treatment
[27]	33	Stroke, spinal cord lesion or other central nervous lesions	Parallel	Ketamine 50-75 mg/session, 5 sessions	Self-powered disposable patch; one week	Placebo patch	100-VAS	Post-treatment
[28]	40	Stroke, spinal cord lesion or other central nervous lesions	Parallel	Pregabalin, 150-600 mg/day, 4 weeks	Oral; 4 weeks	Placebo pills	100-VAS	Post-treatment