Comparison of Topical Versus Sub-Tenon's Anesthesia in Phacoemulsification at a Tertiary Care Eye Hospital

Purpose: to compare the effectiveness of topical and sub-tenon's anesthesia in providing pain relief during phacoemulsification. methods: this randomized controlled trial was carried out at a tertiary eye care hospital,coimbatore,tamil nadu,india. patients who underwent phacoemulsification through self-sealing clear corneal incision with foldable intra-ocular lens implantation were randomized into two groups. group 1 (n = 100) received topical anesthesia with 0.5% proparacaine (paracaine,sunways india pvt. ltd.,india) drops. group 2 (n = 100) received sub-tenon's infiltration with 2% lignocaine (xylocaine,astrazeneca pharma india pvt. ltd.,india). as per study criteria,patients graded the pain during administration of anesthesia,during surgery and after surgery on a visual analogue pain scale. the surgeon graded overall patient co-operation. the complications were also noted. data analysis was performed using statistical package for social sciences version 11. student's t-test and chi-square test were used for comparison of variables between the groups. results: sub-tenon's anesthesia provided statistically significant better intra-operative pain relief and patient satisfaction than topical anesthesiat. no statistically significant difference was noted between the two groups regarding pain during administration,postoperative pain,and surgeon satisfaction. conclusion: sub-tenon's anesthesia provides better pain relief than topical anesthesia during phacoemulsification.