Also, patients needing an anesthetic injection on the upper jaw or the roof of the mouth may benefit from the DentiPatch, since its painkilling drug penetrates through layers of tissue. A gel, on the other hand, only numbs the top layer of tissue.
The study appears in a recent issue of the Journal of the American Dental Association. Carr's co-author was John Horton, a professor of periodontology at Ohio State.
Sixty patients participated in the study, which compared the numbing effects of the DentiPatch to those of a topical gel that contained the painkiller benzocaine. Subjects underwent one or more of the following dental procedures: a needle stick without injection, a needle stick with injection and scraping of the tooth and underneath the gum.
The patients rated the pain they felt using the verbal pain score (VPS) scale, which rates pain on a scale of zero (no pain) to four (very severe pain).
One group of 20 patients compared the DentiPatch to a
placebo patch as well as a topical gel to a placebo gel. The
researchers wanted to examine how each anesthetic worked
compared to using no painkiller. The patients underwent both
needle sticks without injection as well as scraping proce
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Contact: Michele Carr
Carr.3@osu.edu
614-688-4897
Ohio State University
1-Apr-2002