Postoperative Pain Management after Impacted Third Molar Surgery with Preoperative Oral Lamotrigine, a Randomized, Double-blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial

Statement of the problem: extraction of the impacted third molar is often associat-ed with severe postoperative pains, management of which are a big challenge. lamotrigine is a new antiepileptic drug with pre-emptive analgesic properties, which is hypothesized to alleviate postoperative pain. purpose: this study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of pre-operative administration of single oral 200 mg lamotrigine in reducing the postoperative pain of impacted third molar surgery. materials and method: in this randomized controlled trial, 100 adult patients were divided into two groups (n= 50) to receive either 200 mg oral lamotrigine or placebo 1 hour before the removal of impacted third molar. the patients were monitored for 4 hours in the recovery room and pain intensity was measured through visual analogue scale (vas) for the next 12 hours at 30-minute intervals. the time and number of rescue analgesics used in 12 hours was also recorded. results: two groups were not statistically significantly different regarding the sever-ity of postoperative pain. (p= 0.512) conclusion: accordingly, pre-emptive administration of lamotrigine was not effec-tive in diminishing the postoperative acute pain of impacted third molar extraction.