The DOI matches its Crossref record; 42 of the 42 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Systematic review of topical capsaicin for the treatment of chronic pain
Open accessAbstract
OBJECTIVE: To determine the efficacy and safety of topically applied capsaicin for chronic pain from neuropathic or musculoskeletal disorders. DATA SOURCES: Cochrane Library, Medline, Embase, PubMed, an in-house database, and contact with manufacturers of topical capsaicin. STUDY SELECTION: Randomised controlled trials comparing topically applied capsaicin with placebo or another treatment in adults with chronic pain. DATA EXTRACTION: Primary outcome was dichotomous information for the number of patients with about a 50% reduction in pain. Outcomes were extracted at four weeks for musculoskeletal conditions and eight weeks for neuropathic conditions. Secondary outcomes were adverse events and withdrawals due to adverse events. DATA SYNTHESIS: Six double blind placebo controlled trials (656 patients) were pooled for analysis of neuropathic conditions. The relative benefit from topical capsaicin 0.075% compared with placebo was 1.4 (95% confidence interval 1.2 to 1.7) and the number needed to treat was 5.7 (4.0 to 10.0). Three double blind placebo controlled trials (368 patients) were pooled for analysis of musculoskeletal conditions. The relative benefit from topical capsaicin 0.025% or plaster compared with placebo was 1.5 (1.1 to 2.0) and the number needed to treat was 8.1 (4.6 to 34). Around one third of patients experienced local adverse events with capsaicin, which would not have been the case with placebo. CONCLUSIONS: Although topically applied capsaicin has moderate to poor efficacy in the treatment of chronic musculoskeletal or neuropathic pain, it may be useful as an adjunct or sole therapy for a small number of patients who are unresponsive to, or intolerant of, other treatments.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
Assessing the quality of reports of randomized clinical trials: Is blinding necessary?
Jadad, A. R., Moore, R. A., Carroll, D., Jenkinson, C., Reynolds, D. J. M., Gavaghan, D. J., & McQuay, H. J. (1996) · Controlled Clinical Trials · doi:10.1016/0197-2456(95)00134-4 · Cited by 17,582
Self-citationZhang, Q., Wang, C., Zheng, M., Li, Y., Li, J., Zhang, L., Shang, X., & Yan, C. (2015) · Cerebrovascular Diseases · doi:10.1159/000369778 · Cited by 11,533
Moher, D., Cook, D. J., Eastwood, S., Olkin, I., Rennie, D., & Stroup, D. F. (1999) · The Lancet · doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(99)04149-5 · Cited by 4,826
Dong, Y., Hao, L., Shi, Z., Wang, G., Zhang, Z., & Han, C. (2013) · Urologia Internationalis · doi:10.1159/000351405 · Cited by 4,540
(1958) · Journal of the American Pharmaceutical Association (Scientific ed.) · doi:10.1002/jps.3030470133 · Cited by 2,489
Statistics with Confidence: Confidence Intervals and Statistical Guidelines.
Jolliffe, F. R., Gardner, M. J., & Altman, D. G. (1990) · Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A (Statistics in Society) · doi:10.2307/2982808 · Cited by 1,319
Meta-Analysis in Clinical Research
L'ABBÉ, K. A., DETSKY, A. S., & O'ROURKE, K. (1987) · Annals of Internal Medicine · doi:10.7326/0003-4819-107-2-224 · Cited by 1,267
Martindale. The Extra Pharmacopoeia.
(1983) · Annals of Internal Medicine · doi:10.7326/0003-4819-98-5-687_2 · Cited by 1,111
Song, F., Altman, D. G., Glenny, A.-M., & Deeks, J. J. (2003) · BMJ · doi:10.1136/bmj.326.7387.472 · Cited by 943
Morris, J. A., & Gardner, M. J. (1988) · BMJ · doi:10.1136/bmj.296.6632.1313 · Cited by 764
Cited by
Chapter 4 European guidelines for the management of chronic nonspecific low back pain
Airaksinen, O., Brox, J. I., Cedraschi, C., Hildebrandt, J., Klaber-Moffett, J., Kovacs, F., Mannion, A. F., Reis, S., Staal, J. B., Ursin, H., et al. (2006) · European Spine Journal · doi:10.1007/s00586-006-1072-1 · Cited by 2,594
Pharmacologic management of neuropathic pain: Evidence-based recommendations
Dworkin, R. H., O’Connor, A. B., Backonja, M., Farrar, J. T., Finnerup, N. B., Jensen, T. S., Kalso, E. A., Loeser, J. D., Miaskowski, C., Nurmikko, T. J., et al. (2007) · Pain · doi:10.1016/j.pain.2007.08.033 · Cited by 2,126
Pharmacological Management of Persistent Pain in Older Persons
(2009) · Pain Medicine · doi:10.1111/j.1526-4637.2009.00699.x · Cited by 916
Recommendations for the management of herpes zoster
Dworkin, R. H., Johnson, R. W., Breuer, J., Gnann, J. W., Levin, M. J., Backonja, M., Betts, R. F., Gershon, A. A., Haanpää, M. L., McKendrick, M. W., et al. (2007) · Clinical Infectious Diseases · doi:10.1086/510206 · Cited by 869
Vinik, A. I., Nevoret, M.-L., Casellini, C., & Parson, H. (2013) · Endocrinology and Metabolism Clinics of North America · doi:10.1016/j.ecl.2013.06.001 · Cited by 366
Metadata
- Authors
- Mason, L., Moore, R. A., Derry, S., Edwards, J. E., & McQuay, H. J.
- Venue
- BMJ
- Publisher
- BMJ
- Published
- 2004-03-19
- Volume
- 328
- Issue
- 7446
- Pages
- 991
- ISSN
- 0007-1447 (ISSN-L)
- 0959-8138
- 1468-5833
- OpenAlex
- W2168209429
- Cited by
- 462
- References
- 42
- FWCI
- 1.95
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
How to cite
Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Systematic review of topical capsaicin for the treatment of chronic pain. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1136/bmj.38042.506748.ee
- The paper
- Mason, L., Moore, R. A., Derry, S., Edwards, J. E., & McQuay, H. J. (2004). Systematic review of topical capsaicin for the treatment of chronic pain. BMJ. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.38042.506748.ee
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.