Effectiveness and Safety of Tapentadol in Managing Diabetic Neuropathic Pain: A Systematic Review

Introduction: Tapentadol, a μ-opioid agonist and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor is an effective medication for a wide variety of chronic pain conditions, including back pain, cancer-related pain, and arthritic pain. More recently, tapentadol extended-release has been demonstrated to be effective in the management of painful diabetic neuropathy, an often debilitating condition affecting approximately one-third of all patients with diabetes.

Aim of the Study: To identify the efficacy of Tapentadol in the management of patients with Diabetic Neuropathic Pain and to compare the safety of Tapentadol with other drugs used in the management of diabetic neuropathy.

Materials and Methods: Up to March 2023, PubMed, Cochrane CENTRAL, Web of Science, and Scopus were searched for potentially relevant studies that met the inclusion criteria. We adhered to PRISMA checklist items for reporting systematic reviews.

Results: Three studies included 731 patients suffering from Diabetic polyneuropathy with a mean age of 60.9 years and a mean follow-up duration of 9.3 weeks. The mean difference between the Tapentadol and placebo is 0.97(95% CI [0.59, 1.34]) with the results in favour of Tapentadol with a total sample of 374 patients in the Tapentadol group and 357 patients in the Placebo group.

Conclusion: Despite the efficacy of Tapentadol in PDN, the toxicity profile and higher incidence of withdrawal rate should give attention away its use in future research.