Comparative Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Different Pain-alleviating Methods before Local Anesthetic Administration in Children of 6 to 12 Years of Age: A Clinical Study.

BACKGROUND AND AIM OF THE STUDY: Pediatric patients are apprehensive regarding having dental treatment mainly because of painful local anesthetic (LA) injections. Various techniques like transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS), topical anesthetic agents, and vibrator device are introduced to reduce discomfort before LA administration. Therefore, the present study aimed to compare and evaluate the effectiveness of TENS, 2% lignocaine gel, eutectic mixture of lignocaine and prilocaine (EMLA), and vibrating device before LA injections in alleviating pain in pediatric patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Sixty healthy children aged 6 to 12 years who required LA injections for dental procedures were selected and divided into four groups with 15 patients in each group. Wong-Baker's facial pain rating scale (WBFPRS) and face, legs, activity, cry, and consolability scale (FLACC) are used for pain perception which are tabulated, and statistically analyzed. RESULTS: The test results demonstrated that the TENS group has shown the least mean WBFPRS and FLACC score, followed by vibrator devices, EMLA gel, and lignocaine gel. CONCLUSION: The newly introduced TENS apparatus showed encouraging results, hence can be used as a safe and reliable technique to be used in pediatric dentistry. HOW TO CITE THIS ARTICLE: Patil SB, Popali DD, Bondarde PA, et al. Comparative Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Different Pain-alleviating Methods before Local Anesthetic Administration in Children of 6 to 12 Years of Age: A Clinical Study. Int J Clin Pediatr Dent 2021;14(4):447-453.

Novel biocompatible poly(acrylamide)-grafted-dextran hydrogels: Synthesis, characterization and biomedical applications.

An electro-responsive PAAm-g-Dxt copolymer was synthesized and characterized by 1HNMR & FTIR spectroscopy, neutralization equivalent, elemental and thermogravimetric analysis to ascertain the grafting reaction. Further, we developed an electro-responsive transdermal drug delivery system (ETDS) utilizing PAAm-g-Dxt copolymer for rivastigmine tartarate delivery through skin. The ETDS were developed using drug-loaded PAAm-g-Dxt hydrogel as the reservoir, and cross-linked dextran-poly(vinyl alcohol) blend films as rate controlling membranes (RCM). In the absence of electrical stimuli, a small amount of drug was permeated from the ETDS, while in the presence of electrical stimuli, the drug permeability was increased. On application of electric stimulus, the flux was increased by 1.6 fold; drug permeability was enhanced when the strength of applied electric current was raised to 8 mA from 2 mA. The drug permeability characteristics studied under "on-off" stimuli suggested that there was faster drug permeation when electrical stimuli was 'on' and it decreased when electrical stimuli was 'off.' The histopathology study confirmed the altered skin structural integrity after application of electrical stimuli. Hence, the PAAm-g-Dxt based ETDS are useful for transdermal drug delivery triggered by an electric stimulus to deliver on-demand release of drug into systemic circulation.