Background: Local anesthetic agents are more commonly used in dentistry to have painless procedure during surgical intervention in bone and soft tissue. There are many local anesthetic agents available with the wide selection of vaso-constrictive agents that improve the clinical efficacy and the duration of local anesthesia. Most commonly lignocaine with adrenaline is used in various concentrations. Systemically adrenaline like drugs can cause a number of cardiovascular disturbances while most are short lived, permanent injury or even death may follow in drug induced ventricular fibrillation, myocardial infarction or cerebro-vascular accidents. This study compared the efficacy and cardiovascular effects with the use of 2% lignocaine with two different concentrations.
Materials and methods: Forty patients underwent extractions of mandibular bilateral teeth using 2% lignocaine with two different concentrations - one with 1:80000 and the other with 1:200000.
Results: There was no significant difference in the efficacy and duration with the 2% lignocaine with 2 different concentrations. 2% lignocaine with 1:80000 adrenaline concentration has significantly increased the heart rate and blood pressure especially systolic compared with the lignocaine with 1:200000.
Conclusion: Though 2% lignocaine with 1:80000 is widely used in India, 1:200000 adrenaline concentrations do not much affect the cardiovascular parameters. So it is recommended to use 2% lignocaine with 1:200000 for cardiac patients.
Keywords: Adrenaline; inferior alveolar nerve block; lignocaine (2%); local anesthesia.