Efficacy of Intravenous Lidocaine for Pain Relief in the Emergency Department: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

OBJECTIVE: To compare the efficacy of intravenous (IV) lidocaine with standard analgesics (NSAIDS, opioids) for pain control due to any cause in the emergency department. METHODS: The electronic databases of PubMed, Embase, ScienceDirect, CENTRAL, and Google Scholar were explored from 1st January 2000 to 30th March 2021 and randomized controlled trials (RCTs) comparing IV lidocaine with a control group of standard analgesics were included. RESULTS: Twelve RCTs including 1,351 patients were included. The cause of pain included abdominal pain, renal or biliary colic, traumatic pain, radicular low back pain, critical limb ischemia, migraine, tension-type headache, and pain of unknown origin. On pooled analysis, we found no statistically significant difference in pain scores between IV lidocaine and control group at 15 min (MD: −0.24 95% CI: −1.08, 0.61 I(2) = 81% p = 0.59), 30 min (MD: −0.24 95% CI: −1.03, 0.55 I(2) = 86% p = 0.55), 45 min (MD: 0.31 95% CI: −0.66, 1.29 I(2) = 66% p = 0.53), and 60 min (MD: 0.59 95% CI: −0.26, 1.44 I(2) = 75% p = 0.18). There was no statistically significant difference in the need for rescue analgesics between the two groups (OR: 1.45 95% CI: 0.82, 2.56 I(2) = 41% p = 0.20), but on subgroup analysis, the need for rescue analgesics was significantly higher with IV lidocaine in studies on abdominal pain but not for musculoskeletal pain. On meta-analysis, there was no statistically significant difference in the incidence of side-effects between the two study groups (OR: 1.09 95% CI: 0.59, 2.02 I(2) = 48% p = 0.78). CONCLUSION: IV lidocaine can be considered as an alternative analgesic for pain control in the ED. However, its efficacy may not be higher than standard analgesics. Further RCTs with a large sample size are needed to corroborate the current conclusions.