Periodontal ligament injection versus routine local infiltration for nonsurgical single posterior maxillary permanent tooth extraction: comparative double-blinded randomized clinical study

AIM The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of, and patients' subjective responses to, periodontal ligament (PDL) anesthetic injection compared to traditional local-anesthetic infiltration injection for the nonsurgical extraction of one posterior maxillary permanent tooth. MATERIALS AND METHODS All patients scheduled for nonsurgical symmetrical maxillary posterior permanent tooth extraction in the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at the University of Jordan Hospital, Amman, Jordan over a 7-month period were invited to participate in this prospective randomized double-blinded split-mouth study. Every patient received the recommended volume of 2% lidocaine with 1:100,000 epinephrine for PDL injection on the experimental side and for local infiltration on the control side. A visual analog scale (VAS) and verbal rating scale (VRS) were used to describe pain felt during injection and extraction, respectively. Statistical significance was based on probability values <0.05 and measured using χ2 and Student t-tests and nonparametric Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests. RESULTS Of the 73 patients eligible for this study, 55 met the inclusion criteria: 32 males and 23 females, with a mean age of 34.87±14.93 years. Differences in VAS scores and VRS data between the two techniques were statistically significant (P<0.001) and in favor of the infiltration injection. CONCLUSION The PDL injection may not be the alternative anesthetic technique of choice to routine local infiltration for the nonsurgical extraction of one posterior maxillary permanent tooth.