The effect of pre-cooling versus topical anesthesia on pain perception during palatal injections in children aged 7-9 years: a randomized split-mouth crossover clinical trial.

Background: To compare pain perception during palatal injection administration in children aged 7-9 years while using pre-cooling of the injection site versus application of topical anesthesia as a pre-injection anesthetic during the six months.

Methods: A prospective randomized split-mouth crossover trial was conducted among 30 children aged 7-9 years, who received topical application of either a pencil of ice (test group) or 5% lignocaine gel (control group) for 2 min before injection. The primary and secondary outcome measures were pain perception and child satisfaction, measured by the composite pain score and the faces rating scale, respectively.