Abstract

Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory analgesics are commonly prescribed to out-patients who have undergone oral surgical procedures, since they are said to provide excellent pain relief for mild to moderate pain, allied with minimal side-effects. One hundred patients were entered into a randomised clinical trial to compare the efficacy of a simple non-steroidal analgesic with that of a combination analgesic compound following the removal of lower third molars under local anaesthesia. Pain scores were measured for patients post-operatively by means of a verbal rating scale for 3 days and data were analysed using the Mann-Whitney U-test. Results suggest that this combination product offers no advantages (but shows definite disadvantages) when compared to an effective non-steroidal anti-inflammatory product