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Review
. 2015 Oct-Dec;31(4):450-6.
doi: 10.4103/0970-9185.169049.

Topical anesthesia

Mritunjay Kumar  1 , Rajiv Chawla  1 , Manish Goyal  1
Affiliations
Review

Topical anesthesia

Mritunjay Kumar et al. J Anaesthesiol Clin Pharmacol. 2015 Oct-Dec.

Abstract

Topical anesthetics are being widely used in numerous medical and surgical sub-specialties such as anesthesia, ophthalmology, otorhinolaryngology, dentistry, urology, and aesthetic surgery. They cause superficial loss of pain sensation after direct application. Their delivery and effectiveness can be enhanced by using free bases; by increasing the drug concentration, lowering the melting point; by using physical and chemical permeation enhancers and lipid delivery vesicles. Various topical anesthetic agents available for use are eutectic mixture of local anesthetics, ELA-max, lidocaine, epinephrine, tetracaine, bupivanor, 4% tetracaine, benzocaine, proparacaine, Betacaine-LA, topicaine, lidoderm, S-caine patch™ and local anesthetic peel. While using them, careful attention must be paid to their pharmacology, area and duration of application, age and weight of the patients and possible side-effects.

Keywords: Eutectic mixture of local anesthetics; Topical anesthesia; iontophoresis; local anesthetic; skin permeation enhancer; sonophoresis; uses and side-effects of topical anesthetics.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Skin penetration routes
Figure 2
Figure 2
Iontophoresis
Figure 3
Figure 3
Sonophoresis
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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