Evaluation of Onset and Duration Period of Pulpal Anesthesia on Articaine, Buffered Articaine, Lignocaine and Buffered Lignocaine in Inferior Alveolar Nerve Block

Context: Pain is one of the most commonly experienced symptoms in dentistry, and managing pain is of greater importance during dental treatment. Local anesthetics are chemicals that block nerve conduction in a specific, temporary and reversible manner, without affecting the patient's consciousness. Aims: The aim of this study is to evaluate the anesthetic efficacy of buffered lignocaine, buffered articaine, unbuffered lignocaine and unbuffered articaine in terms of latency (onset of anesthetic effect), duration of anesthetic effect during extraction of mandibular teeth following standard inferior alveolar nerve block. Settings and Design: This study was conducted at Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Saveetha University, Chennai from November 2013 to November 2015. Methods and Materials: This study compares the anesthetic efficacy of 4% articaine, 2% lignocaine, 4% buffered articaine and 2% buffered articaine with epinephrine. Onset, duration of anesthetic effect was compared. Statistical analysis used: ANOVA Results: Total number of patients were 272. These patients were equally divided into 4 groups, each group containing 68 patients.THE anova test shows that significant difference between the groups, the mean value shows the group 4 is better than the other 3 groups. Conclusion: We conclude that 4% articaine has faster onset when compared to the other three group. Buffered lignocaine had significantly longer duration when compared to the other groups. This can be explained based on its different chemical structure, liposolubility, increased protein binding ability, diffusion in soft tissue and increased pulpal anesthesia.