Introduction:

Postoperative pain after extraction of mandibular third molars is a common complaint, requiring effective approaches for its management.

Objective:

To perform a Pilot Study providing information on the management of postoperative pain after extraction of mandibular third molars, comparing the analgesic efficacy and onset of action of ibuprofen associated with arginine with ibuprofen alone.

Methodology:

Prospective, randomized, split-mouth, blinded clinical study involving 14 outpatients, totaling 28 bilateral symmetrical mandibular third molars. Each patient underwent separate surgeries with a regular interval of 15 days between them. At the end of each stage, patients were medicated with ibuprofen (600 mg) associated with arginine (555 mg) or ibuprofen alone (600 mg). Study participants recorded pain intensity using the Visual Analogue Numeric Rating Scale (VAS) over 3 days.

Results:

The onset of analgesia showed statistically significant differences, assessed as the median time to significant pain relief was achieved after 24.8 minutes with ibuprofen associated with arginine, and within 40.2 minutes with ibuprofen (p = 0.0245). Analgesic quality was similar between the two groups (p = 0.2156).

Conclusions:

Ibuprofen with arginine provides analgesia, achieving pain relief rates similar to the conventional formulation, but with a significantly faster onset of pain relief. The results corroborated the results of previous studies on the efficacy of ibuprofen in acute pain after surgical removal of impacted mandibular third molars.