Cooling anesthesia can improve patient experiences, optimize workflow efficiency
Cooling anesthesia prior to intravitreal injection (IVT) appears to be safe and effective and may improve patient experiences, according to data presented at the 2020 ASRS Virtual Meeting.
In this ongoing, multicenter, open-label study, 52 patients who had received ≥3 prior IVT received cooling anesthesia instead of regular anesthesia. Of the 166 cooling applications performed thus far in the study, no serious adverse events have been reported.
Nonserious AEs include 19% incidence of subconjunctival hemorrhage related to IVT, not to cooling administration.
Pain during IVT was not significantly different than pain during historical controls and regular anesthesia, however, 70% of patients said they preferred cooling anesthesia over their previous anesthesia method of subconjunctival lidocaine.
It took <2 minutes to complete cooling anesthesia and IVT, which the researchers said is significantly shorter than the time it takes to complete IVT with subconjunctival lidocaine.
Reference
Chao D, et al. Cooling anesthesia for intravitreal injection with a novel device: results of the prospective COOL-2 Study. Presented at: 2020 ASRS Virtual Meeting.