Summary of: Pain perception during inferior alveolar injection administered with the Wand or conventional syringe

Key Points The Wand technique seems to be of benefit during inferior alveolar injection of patients with low dental anxiety. Most of the patients preferred inferior alveolar injection with the Wand than with conventional syringe for future dental injections. The Wand technique not only lowers the pain of injection, but also eliminates the visual stimulus of dental syringes for patients with low dental anxiety. Objective This study compared a computerised device (the Wand) with a conventional syringe in terms of the pain of needle insertion and injection during inferior alveolar nerve (IAN) block injection. Methods and materials The subjects were 40 patients between the ages of 18 and 30 years requiring local anaesthesia for dental restoration in the mandible. Before anaesthetic administration, the patients' anxiety levels were determined. Contralateral IAN injections were administrated at two separate appointments with random use of either the Wand or a conventional syringe. Following the injection, the patients used both the pain rating score (PRS) and a visual analogue scale (VAS) to assess the intensity of pain. Results When pain was measured after the injection, the Wand was found to be less painful than the syringe for the pain of both needle insertion and injection (p