Abstract
Articaine has been increasingly used by dentists to overcome the challenge of anaesthetising symptomatic irreversible pulpitis mandibular teeth. A meta-analysis of randomised clinical trials (RCTs) was conducted to examine whether the efficacy of articaine differs from that of lidocaine in achieving inferior alveolar nerve block (IANB). A systematic review was conducted in PubMed and EMBASE to identify eligible studies. Anaesthesia success (outcome) was expressed as risk ratios (RR) calculated from the raw data extracted from each study. Out of the 387 total studies found using the search keywords, 9 were ultimately included in the meta-analysis, representing a total of 517 patients. The use of articaine to achieve complete anaesthesia via inferior alveolar nerve block was 1.22 times as effective as that of lidocaine (95% CI=1.07, 1.40). Results favoured the use of articaine over lidocaine for increasing the efficacy of anaesthesia in symptomatic mandibular teeth with irreversible pulpitis.