Introduction:

the inferior alveolar dental nerve block is the method most commonly used by endodontists to achieve local anesthesia during treatments. This study compared the efficacy of two anesthetic solutions: 2% lidocaine with 1:80,000 epinephrine and 4% articaine with 1:100,000 epinephrine in patients with different pulp diagnoses requiring endodontic treatment.

Method:

an interventional, randomized clinical trial. The sample included 36 patients who were treated at the postgraduate endodontics service at the Universidad de Cartagena in the year 2016. Descriptive statistics and the X 2 test were used for data analysis, using a limit of 0.05.

Results:

articaine showed a greater anesthetic effect in vestibular mucosa (88.9%) and tip of tongue (55.6%), compared with lidocaine. The rates of anesthetic success in the lidocaine and articaine groups were 5.6% and 22.2% respectively, but this difference was not statistically significant (p = 0.633). In teeth with normal pulp, the efficacy was 27.3%, and this value considerably decreased in teeth with asymptomatic and symptomatic irreversible pulpitis, with percentages of 5.8% and 12.5% respectively, although this difference was not statistically significant (p = 0.276).

Conclusions:

no statistically significant differences were found in the anesthetic efficacy of 2% lidocaine and 4% articaine in lower molars with vital pulp. However, articaine showed a better anesthetic success rate. No statistically significant differences were found when comparing the anesthetic efficacy in molars with normal pulp and molars with inflamed pulp-although the percentage of success in normal pulp was greater than in teeth with irreversible pulpitis.

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