Comparison of injection pain, heart rate increase, and postinjection pain of articaine and lidocaine in a primary intraligamentary injection administered with a computer-controlled local anesthetic delivery system.

The purpose of this prospective, randomized, double-blind study was to compare the pain of injection, heart rate increase, and postinjection pain of the intraligamentary injection of 4% articaine with 1:100,000 epinephrine and 2% lidocaine with 1:100,000 epinephrine administered with a computer-controlled local anesthetic delivery system. Using a crossover design, intraligamentary injections of 1.4 mL of 4% articaine with 1:100,000 epinephrine and 1.4 mL of 2% lidocaine with 1:100,000 epinephrine were randomly administered on the mesial and distal aspects of the mandibular first molar with a computer-controlled local anesthetic delivery system in a double-blind manner at 2 separate appointments to 51 subjects. The results demonstrated the incidence of moderate pain was 14%-27% with needle insertion, with 0%-4% reporting severe pain. For solution deposition, moderate pain was reported 8%-18% of the time, with no reports of severe pain. There were no significant differences between the articaine and lidocaine solutions. Regarding heart rate changes, neither anesthetic solution resulted in a significant increase in heart rate over baseline readings. On day 1 postinjection, there was a 31% incidence of moderate/severe pain with the articaine solution and 20% incidence of moderate/severe pain with the lidocaine solution. The moderate/severe pain ratings decreased over the next 2 days. There were no significant differences between the articaine and lidocaine solutions. We concluded that the intraligamentary injection of 4% articaine with 1:100,000 epinephrine was similar to 2% lidocaine with 1:100,000 epinephrine for injection pain and postinjection pain in the mandibular first molar when administered with a computer-controlled local anesthetic delivery system. For both anesthetic solutions, heart rate did not significantly increase with the intraligamentary injection using the computer-controlled local anesthetic system.