Table 2.

Characteristics of included studies

S. no.	Author-year	Study design	Sample characteristics	Intervention	Comparison	Topical anesthesia and needle gauge	Pain characteristics observed/reported during pulp therapy	Other outcomes evaluated
1	Chopra 2016	Randomized, split-mouth design	30 children aged 4–8 years All children received both the injections	0.8 mL of buccal infiltration with 4% articaine with 1:200,000 epinephrine	Inferior alveolar nerve block (IANB) 1.8 mL of 2% lignocaine and 1:80,000 epinephrine	Benzocaine gel 27-Gauge	Pain during pulp therapy (pulp extirpation) was evaluated with an SEM scale In children aged 4–5 years SEM scores observed was significantly lower for articaine BI (mean = 3) in comparison to the lignocaine IANB group (mean = 5); p < 0.001 In children aged 6–8 years SEM scores observed was significantly lower for articaine BI (mean = 3.23) in comparison to lignocaine IANB (mean = 4.69); p < 0.05 For both pulpectomy and pulpectomy, an observer reported pain was significantly lower for articaine BI in comparison to lignocaine IANB	Other measures evaluated was facial image scale and visual analog scale was noted for pain during injection
2	Arali and Mythri 2016	Randomized double-blind split-mouth design	40 children aged 5–8 years All children received both the injections	Buccal infiltration with 1.8 mL 4% articaine with 1:100,000 epinephrine	IANB with 1.8 mL 2% lignocaine with 1:100,000 epinephrine	Not mentioned	Pain during access opening was evaluated with a Modified Behaviour Pain Scale (MBPS) For access opening, an observer reported pain MBPS was significantly lower for articaine BI (0.5 ± 0.18) when compared to lignocaine IANB (0.7 ± 0.26); p value < 0.05	Other outcomes evaluated in this study were onset, duration of anesthesia. In both these outcomes, there was no significant difference between both the groups
3	Ghadimi 2018	Randomized control trial split-mouth design	23 children aged 5–8 years All children received both the injections	Buccal infiltration with 1.8 mL 4% articaine with 1:100,000 epinephrine	IANB with 1.8 mL 2% lignocaine with 1:80,000 epinephrine	Benzocaine gel 30-Gauge	Pain during coronal pulp extirpation was evaluated with a Modified Behaviour Pain Scale (MBPS) MBPS values were significantly lower with articaine BI (3.13 ± 1.86) in comparison to lignocaine IANB (4.52 ± 2.55)	The other measure evaluated was subjective pain during injection between two groups with Wong-Baker Faces Pain Scale (WB-FPS) where there was no significant difference between both the groups
4	Alzahrani 2018	Randomized control trial Only patient is blinded	Total 98 children age 5–9 years Among them only 24 children were recruited for the pulpectomy treatment 14 children received articaine BI and 10 children received lignocaine IANB Divided into two groups	Buccal Infiltration (BI) with 4% articaine with 1:100,000 epinephrine	Inferior alveolar nerve block (IANB) + long buccal with 2% lignocaine and 1:80,000 epinephrine	Not mentioned	Child-reported pain scores were evaluated during pulp therapy using Wong-Baker Faces Pain Scale (WB-FPS) In this study authors criteria of success or failure was based on the WB-FPS score WB-FPS< 2 success WB-FPS> 2 failure. Authors reported no significant difference between the success of both the groups.	Visual analog scale (VAS) also reported no significant difference between both the groups
5	Alinejhad 2018	Single-blind parallel trial	40 children age 6–10 years. Divided into two groups	Buccal infiltration (BI) with 4% articaine with 1:100,000 epinephrine	IANB with 2% lignocaine with 1:100,000 epinephrine	Benzocaine gel	Child-reported pain scores were evaluated during pulp therapy (pulpotomy) using the Faces Pain Scale Articaine BI group (0.55 ± 0.68) reported lower pain scales in comparison to the lignocaine IANB group (1.85 ± 1.08)	None