摘要：To provide safe dental care, it is important to minimize the pain associated with the initial injection of the local anesthetic. For this purpose, a topical anesthetic is preliminarily applied to the area where a needle will be inserted in a clinical setting. In this study, we prepared new topical anesthetic formulations with favorable intra-oral retentivity and an excellent anesthetic effect, and clinically evaluated their efficacy. We used 4% lidocaine solution as an anesthetic drug and gelatin, agar, and a food thickener as a base to prepare new topical anesthetic formulations. The subjects rested in a supine position on a chair for dental practice prior to the following experiments. Firstly, about 0.2 g of the sample was applied at a test site. One minute later, the sample was removed, and a 30 G dental injection needle was inserted into the test site. The agar/gelatin-based formulation containing gelatin of 2% and agar of 1% had a moderate solidity at 25°C and a moderate fluidity at 37°C. This formulation showed a significantly greater depth than any of the commercially available topical anesthetics. The results of the present study demonstrated that the agar/gelatin-based formulation showed an excellent analgesic effect against pain associated with needle insertion.
