Vibration Anesthesia During Invasive Procedures: A Meta-analysis

Dermatologic office procedures involving needles including injection of local anesthetic both cutaneously and intraorally, botulinum toxin, fillers and keloids, as well as venipuncture and a plethora of other procedures can often cause pain that ranges from mild to severe. The technique of utilizing vibration frequently lessens pain. Vibration anesthesia is a non-invasive, inexpensive, virtually side-effect free, and well-established method of lessening pain during dermatologic procedures. We conducted a review of prior studies which used vibration anesthesia in a variety of invasive procedures.

A comprehensive search was performed using PubMed and EMBASE (Ovid) to look for original studies related to the usage of vibration to reduce pain in invasive procedures. Terms searched were "vibration anesthesia", "vibration analgesia", "vibratory anesthesia", and "vibratory analgesia." Since these terms, especially the most commonly accepted, "Vibration Anesthesia", are generally but not universally recognized, a small number of journal articles were found by searching references of acceptable papers. A total of 35 papers were included for analysis.

Many studies have reported that vibration anesthesia is a useful method for reducing uncomfortable symptoms before dermatologic procedures.

A small number of suitable papers, especially in the dermatologic literature, met the criteria. The instrumentation and techniques used are not standardized.

Studies involving injection of local anesthesia as well as venipuncture in pediatric populations show vibration anesthesia as a useful method to minimize pain. There is additional literature suggesting that vibration is able to help minimize discomfort associated with injections of botox, fillers, intramuscular antibiotic injections and intralesional cortisone for keloids.