Comparison Between Efficacy of Transdermal Ketoprofen and Diclofenac Patch in Patients Undergoing Therapeutic Extraction-A Randomized Prospective Split Mouth Study.

Purpose: Postoperative pain control is a significant aspect of patient treatment after an oral and maxillofacial surgical procedure. The use of a transdermal patch is one such method to provide postoperative analgesia. The present study was undertaken to investigate the efficacy of a single-dose transdermal patch of ketoprofen compared with that of diclofenac postoperatively after therapeutic extraction of first premolar teeth for patients undergoing orthodontic treatment.

Patients And Methods: A split mouth randomized clinical trial was conducted of 40 patients aged 15 to 25 years who had required therapeutic extraction of both maxillary and mandibular first premolar teeth bilaterally. A single ketoprofen patch was applied for the first and fourth quadrant extraction, and diclofenac patch was applied for the second and third quadrant extraction after atraumatic therapeutic exodontia at 2 consecutive appointments with the patient under local anesthesia. The data were obtained and analyzed using the Student t test and Shapiro-Wilk test using SPSS software (IBM Corp, Armonk, NY).

Results: All 40 patients who had received a single-dose ketoprofen patch had experienced less postoperative pain and did not require a rescue analgesic with a mean visual analog scale (VAS) score of 1.13 ± 0.335 (P < .00001). The patients who had received a diclofenac patch reported comparatively elevated pain scores in the initial 24 hours, with a mean VAS score of 2.0 ± 0.5064 postoperatively, and 20% of the diclofenac treatment arm had required a rescue analgesic. No complications were observed among the patients postoperatively in either treatment arm.

Conclusions: Both the ketoprofen and diclofenac transdermal patches were effective in achieving postoperative analgesia in patients after therapeutic extraction, with ketoprofen superior to diclofenac as a transdermal medicament.