Preclinical Research Drug combinations are routinely used in the treatment of pain. In drug associations, adjuvants such as caffeine, are employed with different non-steroidal anti-inflammatories drugs (NSAIDs), however, at present does not exist studies showing the effect of the combination of racemic flurbiprofen (rac-Flur) in association with caffeine. The objective of this work was to evaluate the combination of rac-Flur + caffeine oral in arthritic gout-type pain in rats. The antinociceptive effects of the rac-Flur alone and in combination with caffeine were analyzed on a pain-induced functional impairment model in rat. rac-Flur induced a dose-dependent antinociceptive effect and caffeine did not present any effect. The combination of rac-Flur and caffeine achieve a higher percentage of antinociceptive effect compared with the individual administration of rac-Flur. The dose-response curve (DRCs) shows that the combination of rac-Flur (31.6 mg/kg) + caffeine (17.8 mg/kg) exhibited the maximal antinociceptive efficacy (294.0 ± 21.2 area units), while rac-Flur alone (31.6 mg/kg) showed 207.2 ± 35.2 au, thus indicating an increase in efficacy (potentiation). Furthermore, the DRCs of the combinations presented a displacement to the left, indicating a change in the potency. Caffeine is able to increase the effect of rac-Flur in the arthritic gout-type pain in rats. Drug Dev Res 77 : 192-198, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Keywords: arthritic pain; caffeine; combinations; flurbiprofen.
© 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.