Is amalgamated ligno-bupivacaine an answer to complicated minor oral surgical anesthesia? A randomized split-mouth double-blind clinical trial.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to find a suitable anesthetic combination for complicated and protracted minor oral surgical procedures. METHODS: Fifty patients with bilaterally impacted deep-seated mandibular third molars were included in this study and randomly divided on the basis of anesthetic used into two groups. Group A received 2% lignocaine with 1:200,000 adrenaline while in group B, amalgamated mixture of 2% lignocaine and 0.5% bupivacaine was used. The onset time, duration of anesthetic effect, supplementary injections, pain (during local anesthetic deposition, intra and postoperatively), and postoperative analgesia were the study parameters. Chi-square and unpaired t tests were used to compare means. RESULTS: The onset time in both the groups was comparable and showed statistically significant difference between the duration of anesthetic effect with notable requirement of supplemental anesthetic injections in group A (54%) (p < 0.05). Pain scores also revealed a statistically significant intergroup difference (p < 0.05). Requirement of postoperative analgesics was delayed in group B. CONCLUSIONS: The amalgamated mixture of lignocaine and bupivacaine had equivocally rational onset and provided a more profound and in-depth anesthesia especially in complicated and protracted minor oral surgical procedures. Though this mixture is widely used in other surgical fields, its efficacy still remains unexploited and undocumented in oral and maxillofacial surgical procedures.