Efficacy of the Gow-Gates and Inferior Alveolar Nerve Block Techniques in Providing Anesthesia During Surgical Removal of Impacted Lower Third Molar: A Controlled Randomized Clinical Trial

In spite of common usage of the inferior alveolar nerve block (IANB), this method has some well-defined restrictions. The purpose of the present study was to compare these two techniques for the surgical removal of impacted lower third molars. A total of 44 similarly impacted lower third molars (22 patients with two similar teeth) were selected. In each patient, one side was anesthetized with the Gow-Gates technique and another side with the IANB, randomly. The number of injections for achieving anesthesia, incidence of pain during injections, and the supplementary injections during surgery were recorded for each side In Gow-Gates technique, less repetition of injection was required to achieve anesthesia as well as less supplementary injections during surgery; however, these differences were not significant statistically (P = 0.39, P = 0.11). The pain during Gow-Gates injections was significantly shorter than that of the IANB (P = 0.007). Even though the patients felt less pain during the Gow-Gates injection, this technique has no advantage over the IANB during surgical removal of impacted lower third molar.