According to the report, the study examined 24 patients who were intravitreally injected four times in combination with four different types of anesthesia: topical proparacaine, topical tetracaine, lidocaine pledget and a subconjunctival injection of lidocaine. The order of injections differed for each patient to prevent bias.
After the injection, patients were asked to grade their pain on a 0-10 scale for the injection and the anesthesia. The study showed average combined pain scores for injection and anesthesia at 3.5 for proparacaine, 4.1 for tetracaine, 4.4 for lidocaine pledget and 3.8 for subconjunctival lidocaine.
Differences in pain scores between the four anesthetics were not statistically significant, according to the report.
Read the OSNSuperSite report on topical anesthesia.
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