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Objective: To assess the clinical response of EMLA cream (Eutectic Mixture of Local Anaesthetics; 2.5% Lidocaine/2.5% Prilocaine) in decreasing peripheral cannulation pain in children. Study Design: Quasi-experimental study. Place and Duration of Study: Combined Military Hospital, Rawalpindi Pakistan, from May to Aug 2021. Methodology: This study was conducted on 80 paediatric patients who were classified as American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) Grades I and II and selected using non- probability consecutive sample. They underwent peripheral cannulation to maintain intravascular access for surgical procedure. The forty children in EMLA Group (Group-A) were applied 2.5 ml EMLA cream for 60 min, covered by Tegaderm® over suitable vein, while the 40 children in Control Group (Group-B) received no local anesthetic cream. Participants rated pain during venipuncture on Visual Analog Scale (VAS 0–10; 0, no pain; 10, intolerable pain). Results: Out of 80 patients equally divided into two groups, 40(50%) were males, while 40(50%) were females. The patients included in our study had mean age of 7.35±1.5 years. In EMLA group the mean score of pain was 1.5±0.87 compared to the Control group (mean score = 7.4±1.4; p=0.001). Conclusion: The result of our study suggests that EMLA cream is more efficacious in decreasing venipuncture pain than if no local anaesthetic cream is applied.
Tariq et al. (Fri,) studied this question.