Articaine versus Lignocaine for Surgical Removal of Mandibular 3rd Molars

Aim: Articaine is an amide local anesthetic that differs from other agents of its group due to the presence of thiophene ring instead of a benzene ring. Some researchers claim that articaine is superior to lidocaine in its biologic profile. The aim of the study is to compare the efficacy of articaine with that of lidocaine which has proven efficacy. Materials and method: This study was done on 50 subjects; 25 of them received 4 % articaineHCl with 1: 100000 epinephrine and the next 25 received 2 % lignocaine HCl with 1: 100000 epinephrine. Time of injection, onset of anesthesia, amount of anesthetic injected were recorded. Efficacy was determined using visual analog scale. The values were statistically analyzed. Results: The mean onset time of anesthesia in study group was 2.07 + 0.22 and 2.18 + 0.26 minutes in comparison group. A mean duration of 4.28 +0.78 hours was seen with articaine group and 3.51 + 0.45 hours with the lignocaine group. No statistical difference between the two groups with regard to pain experience???????Conclusion: Articaine has similar efficacy as that of lignocaine with slightly longer duration and can be used as an alternative to lignocaine in third molar surgeries.