Anesthesia with topical lidocaine hydrochloride gauzes in acute traumatic wounds in triage, a pilot study

Treatment of acute wounds in the Emergency Department can be painful for the patient as this can imply cleaning a wound using irrigation or wound closure with sutures or staples. Therefore, local anesthetics, particularly the amino-amides such as lidocaine or prilocaine, are frequently used to facilitate wound treatment (Giordano et  al., 2015). These can be injected into the wound edges or used loco-regionally by infiltration. They can also be applied topically. The authors of a recent Cochrane Review concluded that topical anesthetics are possibly efficient in providing sufficient analgesia for skin suturing (Eidelman et al ., 2011).

Source: International Emergency Nursing - February 28, 2016 Category: Nursing Authors: Milan L. Ridderikhof, Noukje Leenders, Helma Goddijn, Niels W. Schep, Philipp Lirk, J. Carel Goslings, Markus W. Hollmann Source Type: research