Healthcare

Sucrose is organic compound of nonreducing sugar, colourless, sweet-tasting crystals that dissolve in water.

The benefits of sucrose just showed in the treatment for decreasing pain response in infants undergoing venipuncture, a procedure of transcutaneous puncture of a vein.

According to recent trial, compared with topical anesthetic of liposomal lidocaine cream, sucrose solution more better in reducing venipuncture pain in newborns, and adding liposoma lidocaine to sucrose did not add more benefits than sucrose alone.

This suggestion appeared after the researchers from Canada initiated double-blind, randomized controlled, and double-dummy trial among 330 healthy neonates were randomly assigned to pretreatment with 2 ml of 24% sucrose solution (contain 24% sucrose per 100 gram of liquid) by mouth, 1 g of topical liposoma lidocaine cream, or sucrose and liposomal lidocaine.

Pain measurement was evaluated with the facial grimacing score (0 – 100), and safety measurement was determined from adverse events and lidocaine levels.

According to the study authors, pain management is considered as important aspect of quality neonatal care.

Despite several limitations of the study, such as lack of placebo control group, possibility of insufficient sensitivity of pain measurement, lack of generalizability for other medical procedures, overall, reported in Pediatric on March 14, 2011, the study authors, Anna Taddio, PhD, from the University of Toronto in Ontario, Canada, and colleagues write, “Sucrose was more effective than liposomal lidocaine for reducing pain during venipuncture in newborns”, and “additional of liposomal lidocaine to sucrose did not confer any additional benefit to sucrose alone. There was no evidence of harm from liposomal lidocaine or sucrose.”