DENTSPLY Pharmaceutical’s 4% Articadent DENTAL (articaine HCl 4% with epinephrine injection) is ideal for when the clinician requires local, conductive, or infiltrative anesthesia in both single and complex dental procedures.
Articadent is latex-free, and its blister tray packaging protects cartridges from accidental damage. Articadent is available in 2 varieties: 4% Articadent DENTAL with epinephrine 1:100,000 and 4% Articadent DENTAL with epinephrine 1:200,000. DENTSPLY recommends using the former 4% Articadent with epinephrine 1:100,000 during operative or surgical procedures when improved visualization of the surgical field is desirable.
Ten dentists participated in this Dental Product Shopper evaluation of Articadent. The evaluators rated and commented on a number of features, such as time to onset, duration, and effectiveness/ patient reaction.
Ease of Use
Articadent comes with a siliconized plunger that offers clinicians precise control and smooth movement during the procedure. Most of the evaluators rated ease of use as very important or important when considering an anesthesia purchase, and Articadent scored 4.5 in this category. Six evaluators rated it as excellent, 3 rated it as very good, and 1 rated as good. One evaluator said that ease of use it what he liked best about Articadent and went on to call it a “good product.”
Onset and Duration
According to DENTSPLY, Articadent features an onset of only 1 to 9 minutes in infiltration and nerve blocks. It also offers an average pulpal duration of approximately 1 hour in infiltration and approximately 2 hours for nerve blocks.
When asked to comment on the time to onset, 4 evaluators noted this as their favorite feature of Articadent. Their responses fell into only the 2 best categories, with 4 rating it excellent and 6 rating it very good. A Connecticutarea dentist reported, “The time of onset and the duration of anesthesia [are] very good.” He added, “It took anywhere from 4.32 min to 11.4 min for our patients to get ‘numb’. It seemed to work best with our patients that have a very ‘hard’ time getting numb.” The evaluators responded well to the duration, with 3 rating it excellent and 7 rating it very good.
Effectiveness and Patient Reaction
Every single dentist who participated in the Articadent evaluation claimed that effectiveness and patient reaction are very important when considering an anesthetic product. Six of the 10 evaluators noted this as their favorite feature, with 2 simply reporting “profound anesthesia.”
One dentist said, “Articadent has incredible diffusion through hard tissue. I was able to perform routine dental procedures on mandibular teeth with just a simple infiltration.” Regarding effectiveness and patient reaction, 4 evaluators called it excellent, and 6 called it very good.
Overall Satisfaction
When asked to rate their overall satisfaction with Articadent, 4 evaluators rated it as excellent, 5 rated it as very good, and 1 rated it as good. Many evaluators responded that they could think of nothing when asked what they would like to see improved about the product. Nine of the 10 evaluators said they would definitely or probably recommend Articadent to colleagues, as well as purchase the product in the future.
An evaluator from Pearl River, NY, summed up the review by saying, “From the patient perspective, when it comes to ‘novocaine’ the best thing one can say about it is that it got them ‘numb’ and it didn’t take forever to ‘wear away.’ Articadent demonstrated that it effectively met these 2 allimportant attributes.”
