Comparison of precooled tetrafluoroethane versus lidocaine topical anesthetic as a pre-injection anesthetic for inferior alveolar nerve block-a split mouth study

Abstract

Background: Dental anxiety and fear of needle injection is one among the foremost common problems encountered by dental practitioners. This might affect the patient's quality of life. Several methods are suggested to lower the discomfort of local anaesthesia injection during dental procedures. Numbness of injection site is one among the recommended strategies. Materials and Methods: During this Split Mouth design study, a complete of 60 healthy patients between the age of 18 and above were selected and were randomly divided into two equal groups. Sixty participants (120 sites) undergoing prophylactic orthodontic extraction received a five second application of a refrigerant (tetrafluoroethene, sixty sites) and a two minute application of a local anaesthetic (2% percent lidocaine, sixty sites) before an injection of an area anaesthetic solution was administered with a 30 gauge needle. Participants rated the pain they experienced after each injection by employing a 100-mil-limetre visual analogue scale (VAS). The pain was calculated by measuring the space in millimetres from the no pain end of the scale (VAS scale). Results: The means of visual analogue scales (VAS) for the study and control groups were 42.20 ± 12.70 and 58.40 ± 16.83, respectively; With statistically significant differences between the 2 groups (P < 0.05). Conclusion: The utilization of a precooled refrigerant was simpler compared with lidocaine local anaesthetic in reducing the pain experienced by participants who received inferior alveolar nerve blocks.