Comparative Efficacy of the Polyethylene Glycol Gel and the Varying Concentrations of Benzocaine Gel in Achieving Clinically Meaningful Pain Relief in Patients with Toothache

Objective: The objective of this study was to compare meaningful pain relief with Polyethylene glycol gel, 10% and 20% concentrations of benzocaine gel in patients of toothache because of irreversible pulpitis reporting to the department of Operative Dentistry. Methodology: This comparative study was conducted from Dec 2018-Feb 2020 in the Department of Operative Dentistry, PIMS, Islamabad via stratified random sampling. Sample size was 600, 200 each for propylene glycol gel group, 10% Benzocaine group & 20% Benzocaine group. Inclusion criteria was: Patients of 15 years or more age and with-out any systemic illness, toothache because of ir-reversible pulpitis in 01 permanent mandibular or maxillary tooth having an open cavity, those patients having toothache of at-least moderate intensity as per Visual Analogue Scale (VAS). Whereas exclusion criteria were: Patients having periodontal abscess, those used any systemic or topical analgesic inside 4 hours preceding to the visit. After informed consent from participants, the ethical committee of PIMS/SZABMU approved the study Results: One-way ANOVA was used to explore the difference in time duration to achieve meaningful pain relief among the three groups, and it was found to be significant statistically (F=17.193, P<0.001). Post Hoc test was used to explore the pair wise comparisons of the three groups in terms of duration to achieve meaningful pain relief. mean difference of Group B and Group C was 2.719 and the comparison was significant (P=<0.001) and mean difference of Group C and Group A was -4.029 and the comparison was significant (P=0.001). Conclusion: Benzocaine in both concentrations is more effective in achieving clinically meaningful pain relief than Polyethylene Glycol in patients having toothache. Keywords: Benzocaine, Gel, Pain, Polyethylene Glycol, Pulpitis, Toothache