Application of Mandibular Nerve Blocks by Dental Practitioners in Bulgaria with a Working Experience of More than 10 Years – Survey

Abstract

Mandibular nerve blocks are frequently used in the general dental practice. There are many alternative techniques to the classical Halsted approach to the IANB, which were thoroughly researched and proved its usefulness. The choice of the clinician, as to what technique to use, is heavily dependent on many different factors, for example – the success rate of the technique as well as the complication that may arise from it. All doctors of dental medicine should be well versed in different techniques of mandibular nerve blocks, so that they can effectively choose the most appropriate for the concrete clinical case. Many of the IANB techniques require from the clinician to identify intraoral landmarks, which in most of the cases is really difficult, because of their high variability. Because of the many anatomic variation, and the difficulty in their clear identification, the success rate in some cases can be really low and the learning curve of the different techniques can be quite hard.