EFFICACY AND TOLERABILITY OF EMLA CREAM PRIOR TO LASER TREATMENT OF PORT-WINE STAINS

A group of 46 patients, 4 to 74 years old, scheduled for laser treatme nt of port-wine stains were included in a multicentre double-blind stu dy designed to assess the analgesic effect of EMLA cream; Patients wer e randomly allocated to receive EMLA (n=23) or placebo cream (n=23) ap plied a minimum of 1 h before treatment, Pain was assessed on a 10-cm visual analogue scale (VAS), Of the 46 patients, 41 were available for efficacy analysis, The difference in VAS scores was found to be stati stically significant in favour of EMLA compared with placebo, The medi an VAS scores were 2.4 and 4.8 for EMLA and placebo patients, respecti vely, Pain scores according to age (adult/child), localization of angi oma (head and neck/other), type of laser (argon, YAG, pulsed and conti nuous dye laser), and cream application time (<or greater than or equa l to 90 min) were lower with EMLA, Transient local skin reactions were observed with both formulations with equal frequency, It is concluded that EMLA reduces pain in laser treatment of port-wine stains after a minimum application time of 1 h.