Clinical evaluation of cell demodulated targeted electronic anesthesia

Electronic anesthesia is an effective adjunct for the management of dental pain, and has been used in medicine and dentistry for several decades. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of dental electronic anesthesia while preparing teeth for large restorations and full crown coverage. The single-blind study involved the use of two identical units (Cedeta Mk3). One was a fully operational, commercially available unit (active unit), while the other had been modified to prevent current from reaching the electrodes (control unit). Both the non-working control device and the active unit had a normally functioning indicator light that glowed when the unit was turned on. The study participants consisted of 100 patients selected from the roster at New York University College of Dentistry. Subjects were selected if (1) their prescribed treatment plans required large class I, II, III, IV, or V restorations or full coverage crowns, (2) they had previous treatment performed with the use of an injectable local anesthetic, and (3) their medical history showed a lack of medical contraindications. The active unit group had 31 subjects with large restorations required, 5 patients needing inlay/onlay preparations and 14 subjects requiring full coverage. The control unit group had 43 subjects needing large operative restorations, 1 onlay and 6 subjects needing full coverage. Each subject was informed that he/she would be able to eliminate the pain from the dental procedure by maintaining control of the electronic dental anesthesia unit (reaching a therapeutic level). If unmanageable discomfort occurred, intraligamentous local anesthesia would be administered. Two of the 50 subjects who received the control device were able to tolerate the dental procedure, the rest were given the rescue anesthetic upon request. Forty-three of the 50 subjects who received the active unit responded with an excellent or very good evaluation for pain control, with no rescue anesthetic required. Seventy-four dental procedures were performed on the 50 subjects who received the active unit. Forty-five of the subjects in the active unit group said they would prefer to have electronic anesthesia for their next dental treatment, rather than the novocaine they had previously experienced. Forty-eight of the subjects in the control unit group said that they would prefer the traditional novocaine injection for their next dental treatment.