Comparison of inferior alveolar nerve block and intraligamentary anesthesia on the discomfort of children

Intraligamentary anesthesia(ila) can be an alternative to inferior alveolar nerve block(ianb) for the extraction of primary molars. to evaluate the effects of ila and ianb on the discomfort of children during the extraction of mandibulary first primary molars. a single-blind,randomized split mouth study. twenty-nine healthy children participated in this study. dental subscale of children's fear survey schedule(cfss-ds) was used to evaluate the dental fear of children. visual analog scale(vas) scores of both ila and ianb groups were recorded during the injection procedure. heart rate values were recorded during the injection,decollement and extraction periods. pain perceptions of children were evaluated with sound,eye and motor (sem) scale by two trained observers during the injection and extraction procedures. the mean cfss-ds score (22.86±5.829) did not indicate significant dental fear. altough vas scores of ianb was higher than ila,there was no statistically significant difference between them (p>0.05). a significant higher mean sem score for ianb group was recorded in comparison to ila during both injection and extraction periods (p<0.05). there were no statistically significant differences in heart rate during different procedures between two groups (p>0.05). statistical analyses were performed using the spss 18.0 for windows. chi square test,variance analysis and wilcoxon signed ranks tests were used. ila provides effective local pain control and may be an alternative method especially for children.