Pain Control by Novel Route of Gifted Choice Against Peroral Route.

Introduction: Pain after surgical extraction of third molars has been a nemesis for oral surgeons with clinicians, thus striving for an analgesic modality. NSAIDs are among the most widely used therapeutic classes of analgesics. Transbuccal diclofenac sodium patches have been developed as an innovative drug delivery system using buccal mucosa as a gifted choice, hence overcoming first pass metabolism and offering the advantage of sustained drug delivery with reduced incidence of systemic adverse effects.

Aim: A comparative study was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of diclofenac sodium for pain control, administered via the far-fetched and gifted novel route through the transbuccal patch and by ever popular per oral route and also to assess the adverse effects vis-à-vis for transbuccal diclofenac patch and oral diclofenac following extraction of bilaterally symmetrical impacted mandibular third molars under local anaesthesia.

Methodology: Thirty healthy subjects of both the sexes in the age of 12 to 50 years with asymptomatic bilaterally symmetrical mandibular third molars underwent extraction under LA. It is a split-mouth study, i.e. after the extraction of tooth on one side, diclofenac sodium (50 mg) via oral route was given and then in another visit, when the same patient is comfortable and asymptomatic, extraction on contralateral side was executed and transbuccal patched diclofenac sodium (20 mg) was applied. Pain was measured on visual analog scale and verbal rating scale by the patient for 3 days and adverse effects if any were noted.

Result: Statistical analysis showed that transbuccal diclofenac sodium was significantly efficacious when compared to the drug administered orally. Also, statistically significant results were obtained in percentage reduction in pain from 1st to 3rd postoperative day in transbuccal group. No significant difference is seen for adverse reactions.

Conclusion: Transbuccal diclofenac sodium patch is more efficacious and can be used for pain control.