Abstract

Felypressin (Octapressin - made by Sandoz for Astra) has recently been introduced as a vasoconstrictor for use with prilocaine in dental surgery. Vasoconstrictors have been used for many years with local anaesthetics to produce local haemostasis, to prolong the duration of analgesia and, by reducing the rate of absorption of the local anaesthetic into the blood, to allow a larger dose to be used. Adrenaline is widely used but it may cause a variety of arrhythmias which are sometimes serious; it is not known whether nor-adrenaline is any safer.