OBJECTIVES There is no consensus on the most effective pain management for neonatal circumcision. We sought to compare different modalities. METHODS This is a double-blinded randomized controlled trial comparing 3 combination analgesics used during circumcision (EMLA + sucrose; EMLA + sucrose + dorsal penile nerve block [DPNB]; EMLA + sucrose + ring block [RB]) with the traditional topical an...

OBJECTIVE Patients undergoing hemodialysis are repeatedly exposed to stress and pain from approximately 300 punctures per year to their arteriovenous fistula. This study was designed to measure pain associated with venepuncture during AVF cannulation and to compare the effectiveness of ethyl chloride vapocoolant spray, topical eutectic mixture of local anesthetics (EMLA) cream and placebo in co...

OBJECTIVE Neonates routinely undergo painful cutaneous procedures as part of their medical treatment. Lidocaine-prilocaine 5% cream (EMLA) is a topical anesthetic that may be useful for diminishing the pain from these procedures. EMLA is routinely used in children and adults. There is substantial apprehension about its use in neonates because of concerns that it may cause methemoglobinemia. The...

Sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) has been reliably accurate as a minimally invasive surgical alternative for identifying lymphatic breast metastasis. During mapping, the injection of a radioactive tracer or isosulfan blue dye to differentiate the SLN is acutely painful. The use of the eutectic mixture of lidocaine and prilocaine (EMLA) cream to reduce tracer injection pain has been reported an...

Capsaicin, which has been studied extensively as a treatment for itch and several chronic pain disorders, induces burning during the first week of therapy, causing a substantial percentage of patients to discontinue treatment prematurely. We examined whether pre-treatment with the topical anesthetic EMLA reduces the burning sensation induced by capsaicin and alters capsaicin effects on thermal ...

In a double-blind, double-dummy study, the efficacy of topical 5% EMLA cream was compared with that of lignocaine infiltration in alleviating the pain of arterial cannulation. Forty unpremedicated adults were allocated randomly to four groups to receive EMLA cream alone, EMLA and 0.9% saline infiltration, EMLA and 1% lignocaine infiltration or placebo cream and 1% lignocaine infiltration. Follo...