Solid carbon dioxide as an anesthetic in electrodessication of cutaneous blemishes.

Abstract

The electrodesiccation of cutaneous blemishes necessitates the use of local anesthesia because without it the procedure is too painful to be acceptable to patients. Of the two methods of producing local anesthesia, namely, ethyl chloride freezing spray and infiltration with procaine or similar drugs, the local infiltration anesthesia is the more practicable. Ethyl chloride spray is impracticable for two reasons: It is inflammable, and thus unsafe for use in the presence of a spark, and the anesthetic effect wears off by the time the ethyl chloride has evaporated. In using electrodesiccation for such lesions as pigmented moles or common warts in the region of the cartilaginous portion of the nose it is sometimes difficult for one to employ an anesthetic acting by local infiltration because of the close proximity of the underlying cartilage and lack of loose subcutaneous tissue which would allow infiltration with the anesthetic. Solid carbon dioxide used