Ice as a pre-cooling agent at injection site to reduce dental pain: Study

A 3-arm, crossover randomized controlled trial was conducted which included a total of 30 children of age 9–12 years requiring extraction of primary maxillary posterior teeth. Children were randomly allocated to 3 groups of 10 each.

After proper isolation and drying of the buccal mucosa, one of the three techniques, i.e., either LBS or ice or LA gel was applied for 1 minute followed by administration of the LA solution.

The pain response was assessed using Wong-Baker Faces Pain Rating Scale and the Sound Eyes Motor scale (SEM). Kruskal–Wallis ANOVA and Mann–Whitney U tests were performed for intragroup and intergroup comparisons, respectively.

The study revealed that lower pain score of zero suggesting no hurt was given by more children in the ice group, followed by LA gel and LBS groups in both the scales. The differences in pain scores recorded were found to be statistically significant.

As a result, the authors concluded that "ice is found to be equally effective as LA gel, whereas low-level laser therapy is less effective compared to the other two techniques in reducing the injection pain during administration of maxillary posterior buccal infiltration in children."