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OBJECTIVE: To assess and compare the efficacy of 4% articaine as buccal infiltration and 2% lidocaine as a nerve block for painful dental procedures in the maxillary and mandibular arch. STUDY DESIGN: The study was carried out in 40 children (6 to 12 years) who needed local anesthesia for the dental treatment. The subjects were randomly divided into two groups (A & B) based on the arch involved. Group A and group B consisted of 20 individuals randomly receiving lignocaine nerve block and articaine infiltration at an interval of 1 week in the maxillary arch and mandibular arch, respectively. Pain during the administration of anesthetic agents, intra-operative pain, and the onset of anesthesia was recorded for both the arches. RESULT: Pain during the administration of anesthetic agent was more with nerve block than infiltration in both maxillary arch (p=0.001) as well as mandibular arch (p=0.06). Intra-operative pain was similar for both the anesthetic agents in both the arches. Articaine showed a significantly shorter onset of anesthesia in both the arches. CONCLUSION: Efficacy of 4% articaine with infiltration and 2% lidocaine with nerve block was found to be similar. Hence, articaine infiltration can be used as an alternative to the lignocaine nerve block.
Agarwal et al. (Mon,) studied this question.