Evaluation of Efficacy of Intraligamentary Anesthesia for Mandibular Molar Extractions

Overview

Dental extraction is the most common procedure undertaken in the department of Oral Surgery, inferior alveolar nerve block (IANB), till today, is the most commonly used local anaesthesia technique for extraction of lower posterior teeth. The anatomical complexity of this technique carries the risk of anaesthetic failures necessitating repeated needle penetrations and hence a painful experience for the patient. In addition, IANB technique, many times, becomes impossible to perform in fearful adult and paediatric patients, those with restricted mouth opening or intellectual disability. Certain coagulation defects are a contraindication to administration of IANB due to its depth of penetration into the tissues that may lead to fatal consequences in case of uncontrolled bleeding. Because of these shortcomings of IANB, there is always a need for alternative anaesthesia techniques that are less painful and carry lesser risks. Anaesthetic injection into the Periodontal ligament space (space between tooth root surface and the bone forming the socket wall) as an alternative to IANB have been tested by many researchers with varying results. The expected advantages of this technique are reduced pain on injection, shorter duration of anaesthesia that prevents inadvertent lips and cheek biting after completion of the procedure. It is expected to be easier to perform in cases of restricted mouth opening and uncooperative patients due to any reason and carry lesser risk of bleeding within tissues. The objective of our study is to evaluate the efficacy of Intra-ligamentary injection for posterior mandibular molar extraction as an alternative to inferior alveolar nerve block (IANB) so that it can be used in cases where IANB is either difficult to perform or not indicated.