Efficacy of local anesthetic [EMLA] in producing painless venipuncture in children

ABSTRACT

Children between the ages of 4-16 years constitute a considerable proportion of patients presenting for eye surgery at King Khaled Eye Specialist Hospital. We conducted a clinical double-masked prospective to compare the efficacy of EMLA cream [eutectic mixture of lidocaine 25 mg and prilocaine 25 mg/Gm] versus placebo in alleviating pain from venipuncture in 96 children, 4-16 years old [age and sex matched], presenting for genetic blood testing or routine pre-hospitalization examination. Both patient and observer assessed pain using a 1-3 visual analogue score and 1-4 verbal analogue score. EMLA cream produced significantly better analgesia than placebo. EMLA cream 5% seems to be effective in producing dermal analgesia in children for routine blood extraction and intravenous injection