Efficacy of Articaine in the Mandibular Infiltration Technique: A Systematic Review

The use of local anesthetic has become more common in dental offices. Throughout the last few years, an anesthetic base of surprising proprieties has been studied with the aim of evaluating the possibility of providing more comfort to patients during small mandibular procedures. Some studies show that Articaine can be used in the mandible through an infiltration technique as a possible alternative to the inferior alveolar nerve block technique, because it presents a high diffusive power in the cortical bone. The aim of this systematic review was to analyze evidence approaching the efficacy of Articaine through the mandibular infiltration terminal technique. The research survey, which follows the PRISMA protocol, was done by accessing PubMed, Scopus and BVS (Medline) databases. The keywords found in DeCS and MeSH were combined with the Boolean operator “AND.” The 18 studies included in this review were limited to articles published since 1999 that used humans; articles that discussed the mandibular infiltration technique and that compared other anesthetic bases through this technique. Based on the analysis of evidence, Articaine was relatively effective in the mandibular infiltration technique.