Trials for Managing Acute Pain — A Clinically Meaningful Small Effect Size?

The use of opioid medications for pain management after surgery is a leading antecedent to persistent opioid use.1 The negative effects of these agents underscore the need for more nonopioid alternatives to treat postoperative pain; however, years of research and attempts to bring alternative agents to market have failed. Sodium channels, which are essential to depolarization and propagation of sensory information in neurons and axons, are a logical target for pain reduction. Attempts to use systemic nonselective sodium channel blockers have not succeeded because of dose-limiting side effects. Now, years of research on sodium channel blockers that are specific to . . .