OBJECTIVE To compare the pain experienced by patients during injections of local anesthesia in the palate using the traditional syringe and the controlled flow technique with the Calaject system. METHOD AND MATERIALS A single-blind, split-mouth, randomized controlled trial was performed. Twenty-five volunteers were recruited in the Dental Hospital of the University of Barcelona, Spain. Each p...

BACKGROUND This study's aim was to investigate the interaction of amino-amide local anesthetics with human Kv1.1 potassium channels. These channels were chosen because of their proven physiologic role. By using a homolog series of local anesthetics with different lengths of the N-substituent, it was intended to elucidate the role of lipophilic interactions with Kv1.1. The use of stereoisomers a...

Since the early 1980s, the implantable intrathecal drug pump (ITDP) has been used increasingly to manage chronic pain. Prior to making a decision to implant an ITDP, trial administration of the intrathecal (IT) drug should be performed to estimate the effective dose for a starting set of implantable ITDPs. There is no standard method of trial IT drug administration, though. Therefore, this pape...

BACKGROUND It is a common practice to anesthetize patients before performing a thoracentesis. We postulated that this technique may cause a clinically significant difference in the pH of the pleural fluid. METHODS We compared two methods of determining pleural fluid pH. Fifty patients undergoing diagnostic or therapeutic thoracentesis were enrolled. Two 4-mL aliquots of pleural fluid were ana...

In the present study, several pharmacological tests in animals were carried out to assess potential anticonvulsant, local anesthetic and hemodynamic activity of novel 2- and 4-substituted aminobutanol chiral derivatives of xanthone (hydrochlorides of: (R,S)-2-[(7-chloro)-2-xanthonemethyl)]-N-methylaminobutan-1-ol (MH-2(R,S)), (R,S)-2-(4-xanthonemethyl)-aminobutan-1-ol (MH-20(R,S)) and (R,S)-2-[...

Background and objectives: We performed a prospective randomized double-blinded study evaluating if a reduced volume of local anesthetic would result in operative limb surgical anesthesia while decreasing motor paralysis during an ultrasound-guided supraclavicular nerve block. Current tendencies in clinical practice towards smaller injectate volumes during ultrasound-guided nerve block placemen...