title: Inferior alveolar nerve block: Alternative technique.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Inferior alveolar nerve block (IANB) is a technique of dental anesthesia, used to produce anesthesia of the mandibular teeth, gingivae of the mandible and lower lip. The conventional IANB is the most commonly used the nerve block technique for achieving local anesthesia for mandibular surgical procedures. In certain cases, however, this nerve block fails, even when performed by the most experienced clinician. Therefore, it would be advantageous to find an alternative simple technique.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The objective of this study is to find an alternative inferior alveolar nerve block that has a higher success rate than other routine techniques. To this purpose, a simple painless inferior alveolar nerve block was designed to anesthetize the inferior alveolar nerve.
  
  
  METHODS
  This study was conducted in Oral surgery department of Vinayaka Mission's dental college Salem from May 2009 to May 2011. Five hundred patients between the age of 20 years and 65 years who required extraction of teeth in mandible were included in the study. Out of 500 patients 270 were males and 230 were females. The effectiveness of the IANB was evaluated by using a sharp dental explorer in the regions innervated by the inferior alveolar, lingual, and buccal nerves after 3, 5, and 7 min, respectively.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study concludes that inferior alveolar nerve block is an appropriate alternative nerve block to anesthetize inferior alveolar nerve due to its several advantages.
authors.affiliation: Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Vinayaka Mission's Sankarachariyar Dental College, Ariyanoor, Salem, Tamil Nadu, India.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Thangavelu
authors.affiliation: Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Vinayaka Mission's Sankarachariyar Dental College, Ariyanoor, Salem, Tamil Nadu, India.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kannan
authors.affiliation: Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Vinayaka Mission's Sankarachariyar Dental College, Ariyanoor, Salem, Tamil Nadu, India.
authors.forename: N Senthil
authors.initials: NS
authors.lastname: Kumar
keywords: Aanesthesia; inferior alveolar nerve block; mandible