A new focus on pain in ultrasound-guided thyroid fine needle aspiration biopsies: cold sprays

Abstract

Background: Thyroid nodules are seen in many patients today, and fine needle aspiration biopsy is required to identify these nodules. These biopsies are usually performed with ultrasound guidance. Because these procedures are painful in many patients, the need for anesthesia emerges in the Thyroid FNAB. Aim: In our study, we wanted to examine whether the use of ethyl chloride sprays, which are also known as coolant sprays, is an alternative to local anesthetic creams, which is a conventionally used method for these procedures. Methods: This study included 77 patients who were admitted to the endocrinology outpatient clinic of Pamukkale University Medical Faculty (PAUTF) Hospital. In our study, we evaluated whether cold sprays containing ethyl chloride as an alternative method for local anesthesia to relieve pain in ultrasound-guided thyroid FNAB procedures in endocrinology outpatient clinic were useful for patients. Results: When the patients were evaluated, patients divided into 3 groups as group made an operation with cooler spray as Group 1, patients implemented local anaesthetic cream tropically as Group 2 and patients who weren’t implemented any operation before and after the operation as Group 3. When Mc gill Melzack pain scale was compared, group 1 (n:32) took 54,19 group 2 (n:24) took 44 and group 3 (n:21) took 67,29 points. In Group 2, it was found that the pain was the least felt and this value was statistically significant (p:0.0001). When VAS-NRS scores were examined, VAS values were found to be 4.46 in group 1 and 4.34 in group 2 and 4.33 in group 3 and there was no statistically significant result in this situation. But 10 minutes after the procedure in terms of VAS, the group 2 was lowest. Conclusion: In conclusion, in our study, we found that ethyl chloride; cold sprays can be an effective alternative to local anesthetic creams as an alternative method of pain relief.