Dental anaesthesia for children – effects of a computer-controlled delivery system on pain and heart rate: a randomised clinical trial
Abstract
Local anaesthesia
in dentistry is usually given by conventional injection through a
syringe. In this randomised, single-blind, split-mouth clinical study we
evaluated the perception of pain and changes in heart rate in children
being given dental local anaesthesia using a computer-controlled device
compared with that given using a traditional syringe. Participants were
in good general health with no contraindications
to local anaesthetics. One half of each maxilla was anaesthetised using
each technique, the order having been randomly selected according to a
computer-generated sequence. The hypothesis was that the controlled
anaesthetic flow rate results in virtually imperceptible injections. The
outcomes were the perception of pain and the heart rate. Seventy-six
children aged from 5–12 years old participated in this study. The mean
(SD) pain score of the conventional injection was 5.51 (2.46) and the
mean (SD) heart rate was 2.72 (6.76), which were significantly higher
than those of the computerised delivery system, which were 4.74 (2.8)
and 0.34 (7.3) (p = 0.04). More patients anaesthetised with the traditional syringe technique required a second injection (n = 21). These results suggest that dental anaesthesia given to children with a computer-controlled delivery system reduced pain better than that given with a conventional syringe.
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