Ibuprofen reduces pain in children undergoing primary tooth extraction, Study says

The management of pain resulting from anesthesia injection, tooth extraction and in the period after extraction is of great importance in pediatric dentistry.

Hence, Nabih Raslan and Toufic Zouzou from the Department of Paediatric Dentistry, Tishreen University, Lattakia, Syria carried the present study with the aim to compare the efficacy of the preemptive administration of ibuprofen or acetaminophen with placebo in reducing the pain during injection, extraction and postoperatively in children undergoing primary tooth extraction.

A randomized, placebo-controlled, triple-blinded clinical trial of cooperative children who needed primary molar extraction by local anesthesia was conducted. Sixty-six children aged between 6 and 8 years were randomly assigned to one of three groups: (a) Acetaminophen syrup (320 mg/10 ml); (b) placebo solution; and (c) ibuprofen syrup (200 mg/10 ml).

Each of the three solutions was given 30 min before administration of the local anesthetic agent. The Pain level was assessed using the Wong–Baker faces® pain rating scale after injection, extraction, and postoperatively. The Kruskal–Wallis and Mann–Whitney U test were used to evaluate the pain scores between groups at confidence level of 95%.

The results showed that-

a. The use of preemptive analgesics showed lower pain scores compared to placebo.

b. Additionally, only ibuprofen significantly reduced pain scores compared to placebo at the points immediately after injection (p = 0.001), immediately after extraction (p = 0.0001) and 5 h after extraction (p = 0.002).

Therefore, the authors concluded the following-

a. The present study showed that preemptive analgesic administration may be considered a routine and rational pain management strategy in primary tooth extraction procedures in children.

b. Ibuprofen is more effective than acetaminophen in reducing children's pain following extraction of teeth under local anesthesia.

c. Ibuprofen pretreatment suppresses the intensity of injection pain.

For further reference log on to:

https://doi.org/10.1002/cre2.465