Postoperative pain control for outpatient oral surgery.

16 healthy patients requiring removal of bilateral symmetrically-impacted mandibular third molars participated in a double-blind randomised crossover trial to test the effectiveness of postoperative pain control using a long-acting anti-inflammatory agent (diflunisal) in combination with a long-acting local anaesthetic agent (bupivacaine). Results were compared to the more traditional method of using an oral analgesic with shorter duration of action (paracetamol with codeine) with lignocaine as the local anaesthetic. Using a visual analogue pain scale, patients reported that significantly reduced pain was experienced over the first 4 days postoperatively with the diflunisal/bupivacaine treatment and patient preference for this treatment was highly significant. This report represents the first such study of diflunisal used for an extended course in oral surgery with pain assessment over the same period. No significant side-effects or adverse reactions were encountered.