Intraligamentary anesthesia: a double-blind comparative study.

Three local anesthetic agents (Xylocaine 2%, Xylocaine 2% with epinephrine 1:50,000, and Marcaine 0.5 with epinephrine 1:200,000) were injected intraorally using an intraligamentary injection technique. The study used a double-blind design and electrical tooth pulp stimulation to examine the duration of pulpal anesthesia. Patterns of recovery from each drug, subjective discomfort associated with each drug, pain of injection, and pain in comparison with local infiltration were also measured. The extent and duration of adjacent soft tissue anesthesia were recorded. Xylocaine 2% with epinephrine 1:50,000 produced the longest pulpal anesthesia. The decay pattern of this particular drug was less abrupt than that of the two others. No difference in discomfort or pain was found across the various drugs. There was no significant difference in pain at injection when intraligamentary anesthesia was compared with local infiltration. Post-injection pain was slightly lower with local infiltration. The extent of soft tissue anesthesia was significantly related to vasoconstrictor levels in the drugs. The study shows that duration of pulpal and soft tissue anesthesia can be tightly controlled by the operator and tailored specifically to planned dental procedures.