Eighty-three 4- to 12-year-old children, scheduled for curettage of at least five molluscum contagiosum lesions, were randomly allocated to receive lidocaine/prilocaine (EMLA) cream (n = 58) or placebo cream (n = 25), applied 15, 30, or 60 minutes before treatment 1. Pain was assessed in a double-blind fashion by the children and the physician as none, slight, moderate, or severe. In addition, the children rated the pain on a visual analogue scale. EMLA cream effectively prevented pain after all three application times (p < 0.01). No significant difference in pain was observed among the 15-, 30-, and 60-minute EMLA-treated groups, but the proportion of children verbally reporting no pain increased from 36% in the 15-minute group to 61% in the 60-minute group. In the placebo group, only one of 24 children (4%) reported no pain.
Comment: The quality of evidence is downgraded by imprecise results (few patients and wide confidence intervals).
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