Abstract
Abstract: Rationale: Cigarette smoking is a major public health concern, it alters the way drugs function, absorbed, distributed, metabolized, and eliminated by the body including local anesthetics with lidocaine is the most used in dentistry. There is shortage of prior studies on such subject and lack of evidence in Libya. Objectives: The aim of this study is to compare between two groups of patients: smokers and non-smokers on the basis of: Amount of local anesthesia/ Time of onset of local anesthesia/ Duration of action of local anesthesia/ Chief complain. Additionally explore and measure the association between: Chief complain and amount of local anesthetics/ Amount of local anesthesia and duration of smoking in years/ Amount of local anesthesia and cigarettes consumption per day/ Duration of action of local anesthesia and cigarettes consumption per day/ Duration of action of local anesthesia and duration of smoking in years. Methods: A case-control study carried out at VENICIA dental clinic in Tripoli. 84 male patients participated in the study, and they were divided into two groups (42 smokers and 42 non-smokers). The patients received a local anesthetic agent (2% Lidocaine). Special case sheet was used in both groups. Data were analyzed using SPSS v.27 and JAMOVI software. Fisher exact test, Spearman correlation test and mann-whitney test have been applied to the data. Level of significance is defined as (P value: < 0.05). Results: there is a significant difference between both groups with higher amount of anesthesia used in smoker group (p= 0.005). The onset time of anesthesia showed a significant difference between both groups with delay the onset among smoker group (p= 0.024). Marked decrease in duration of action of local anesthetics among smokers group (p= 0.001). There is a statistical association between smoking status and chief complain (p value: <0.01). A moderate positive relationship between the amount of local anesthetics and the duration of smoking of the amount of anesthesia used. A similar moderate positive relationship between the amount of local anesthetics and the daily cigarettes consumption (rho= 0.368, p value= 0.016). There is a strong inverse relationship among the duration of action of local anesthetics and the daily cigarettes consumption (rho= -0.445, p value= 0.003) Conclusion: As a result, our study concluded that smoking increases the dose of local anesthetics required in simple dental procedures with direct proportion between the amount needed and both the duration of smoking and daily cigarettes consumption. Additionally smoking delays the time of onset and shortens the duration of action of local anesthetics. Our study concluded that the duration of action of local anesthetics has a substantial negative proportion with daily cigarette smoking. However, there is no correlation between the duration of action and the duration of smoking. Keywords: Cigarette smoking; Simple dental procedure; Lidocaine; Local anesthesia in Libya.