Differences in efficacy and safety between intrathecal infusion devices in cancer pain

Intrathecal infusion therapy is widely accepted for cancer pain patients when conventional analgesic treatments are not sufficient. There are different types of devices for carrying out this therapy: partially externalized devices (PED), used when life expectancy is under 3 months, and totally implanted devices (TID), when it is larger. Our objective is to compare the efficacy, functionality, and complication rate in both types.

We included 132 patients with mild-severe cancer pain, treated with intrathecal infusion therapy by fixed flow devices, PED, or TID, during the study time. Demographic, physical oncologic, and pain control data of the patients were recorded prior to starting therapy and at months 1, 3, and 6. Functionality status and complications were also collected from the patient's medical records and clinical files.

Pain control improved after starting therapy, with an overall reduction of 4.75 points in VAS score at 1 month in the both groups, without significant differences between them, keeping it at 3 months and 6. 33.3% of the patients developed complications and were more frequent in the PED group, being catheter dislocation the most common. Patients with TID required more often hospital admission to solve the complication.

Intrathecal infusion therapy has been shown to be a very effective and safe therapy for the treatment of moderate to severe oncologic pain. There are no significant differences between PED and TID in terms of degree of pain control, therapeutic success, efficacy on episodic or nocturnal pain, or the presence of serious complications.