Introduction:

There have been promising results for decreasing the incidence and intensity of postoperative sore throat with the use of sprayed benzydamine or intracuff alkalinized lidocaine. At the time of our review, there were no reports that found a superior outcome of their use either alone or as adjuncts.

Material and methods:

We conducted a triple blinded randomized controlled trial composed of four groups: control (placebo-placebo), lidocaine-benzydamine, placebo-benzydamine, lidocaine-placebo with 18 patients randomly allocated to each group. We recorded NAS (numerical analog scale) at 15 min, 1 h, 3 h, 12 h, and 24 h for each group as well as other variables of interest.

Results:

We analyzed the data from 72 patients and detected a statistically significant difference in the intensity of sore throat during the first 24 hours in favor of one group (lidocaine-placebo with a p = 0.003).

Conclusion:

Intracuff alkalinized lidocaine is more effective in decreasing the incidence and intensity of postoperative sore throat compared to the use of benzydamine alone or as an adjunct to alkalinized lidocaine.