Local Anesthetic Delivery System Allows Precise Dosing, Reduced Pain
Patients with dental anxiety often require additional consideration from the practitioner in order to receive necessary treatment. This includes the dentist adopting a "workaround" for patients who are fearful of needles and/or not staying numb. Dan Davidian, DDS, whose private practice in Raleigh, North Carolina, has the name "Sedation Dental Care" in its title, is no stranger to treating patients with dental anxiety and has designed his practice around treating high-fear patients, both adults and children.
"While I sedate many of my patients, I personally do not prefer to sedate children in my practice. I try to give my pediatric patients the most comfortable local anesthetic possible," Davidian explains. As a result, he says, the Anutra Local Anesthetic Delivery System has become a cornerstone of his practice.
Davidian cofounded Anutra Medical in 2007 with the company intent on enhancing patient dental visits by reducing pain and shortening procedure time. The Anutra Local Anesthetic Delivery System, he says, enables practitioners to make patients numb more rapidly, allowing the appointment to move along quicker. This is achieved by leveraging the science of buffering, which increases the predictability and speed at which a patient becomes numb.
"I can get most patients numb comfortably within 1 to 2 minutes and finish a simple procedure in 10 to 15 minutes," Davidian asserts, adding that this benefit also frees up chairtime for more patients.
The anesthetic system is composed of the Anutra Dispenser®, Anutra Syringe, and Anutra Cassette®. The Anutra Syringe, Davidian notes, enables delivery of multiple doses of buffered or unbuffered anesthetic. "It allows me to deliver the exact amount of anesthetic I want. Often dentists administer a full carpule of anesthetic when they may only need 1 mL, or they may have to reload the syringe multiple times when additional anesthetic is needed. With the Anutra multi-dose syringe, I get precisely the amount of anesthetic needed, from 1 mL to 6 mL, and administer it all at once," he says.
Anutra has added 1% lidocaine with epinephrine 1:100,000 to its product offerings, making this particular concentration of lidocaine more accessible to dentists. "Recent studies have shown that buffered 1% lidocaine is as effective as 2% lidocaine and indicate that buffered anesthetic has a lower blood toxicity level," Davidian says. Coupled with a 1% anesthetic solution, profound and effective local anesthetic can be consistently provided that is far more comfortable than traditional anesthetic, he adds.
As Davidian prefers not to sedate children, use of this buffering system is particularly beneficial when treating the pediatric patient population. "Buffered 1% lidocaine, to me, should be considered best practice, especially with children. Further, buffered 1% or buffered 2% lidocaine is a highly reliable, fast-acting, comfortable anesthetic," he emphasizes.
Some compounded or high-concentration topical anesthetics, Davidian points out, contribute to maximum allowable dose. He prefers to use a drop of buffered anesthetic on well-dried tissue just before injecting. "I find I can disguise the pinch of the needle using buffered anesthetic as my topical," he says.
Among the training resources Anutra offers is providing the clinician a customized tablet computer with an entire training regimen. Once the dentist and staff have fully trained and become familiar with the product, they simply send the tablet back using a prepaid label. This allows staff members to conveniently train via the tablet on their own time.
The numerous patient benefits of the Anutra Local Anesthetic Delivery System alone make it a worthwhile investment, Davidian offers. "Patients become predictably and profoundly numb before I can leave the room, making their appointment shorter. Providing peace of mind to a patient with dental anxiety can make all of the difference."
Anutra Medical
1000 Perimeter Park Dr, Suite E
Morrisville, NC 27560
844-ANUTRA1
anutramedical.com
