Bratislava Medical Journal Vol.115, No.12, p.757-760, 2014

Objective: Preemptive analgesia is an antinociceptive treatment that prevents central sensitization. Antinociceptive effects of diclofenac are well-known. The aim of this study was to investigate preemptive analgesic effects of curcumin and diclofenac, before acute and inflammatory induced pain in rat model.
Material and methods:

Fourty eight old female (n = 6 in each group) Wistar Albino rats were included in the study.

Paw movements in response to paw flinching in response to formalin injection or thermal stimulation were compared after curcumin (400 mg kg-1, p.o.) and diclofenac (10 mg kg-1, i.p.) administration. Saline was used as a control. The solvent ethanol was administered in another group of rats. Preemptive analgesic effect was significant in both tests when curcumin and diclofenac was administrated before the pain stimuli.

Results: Oral administration of curcumin and intraperitoneal injection of diclofenac increase the response time in hot plate test and decrease the number of flinches in formalin test (p < 0.001 vs p < 0.05).

Conclusion: These results suggest that curcumin had preemptive analgesic effects on acute thermal, and inflammatory induced pain in rats as diclofenac (Fig. 2, Ref. 35).