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A comparison of Rapydan ® patch and Ametop ® gel for venous cannulation *
Author(s) -
Ravishankar N.,
Elliot S. C.,
Beardow Z.,
Mallick A.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
anaesthesia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.839
H-Index - 117
eISSN - 1365-2044
pISSN - 0003-2409
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2044.2011.07000.x
Subject(s) - medicine , tetracaine , anesthesia , lidocaine , visual analogue scale , surgery
Summary Ametop ® gel (4% tetracaine) is used to provide topical anaesthesia for venous cannulation. Rapydan ® patch (7% lidocaine and 7% tetracaine) has been developed to provide topical anaesthesia by a different mechanism, that of heat assisted delivery. We compared the topical anaesthetic effect of these agents for venous cannulation. One hundred healthy adults undergoing day‐case surgery were randomly assigned to receive either Rapydan (n = 50) or Ametop (n = 50) before venous cannulation. Pain on insertion was scored on a visual analogue scale between 0 and 100 (where 100 = unbearable pain). Median(IQR[range]) pain scores were not different between groups with 11 (5–20 [0–72]) for Rapydan and 10 (5–24 [0–95]) for Ametop (p = 0.63). Adequate topical anaesthesia was achieved in over 90% of patients in both groups. Rapydan produces topical anaesthesia comparable with Ametop for venous cannulation.