Adjunctive Nitrous Oxide During ED Incision and Drainage of Abscess
Public ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT03127371. Field values are reproduced from the official study page; the official ClinicalTrials.gov record remains the source of truth for eligibility, enrollment, and contact information.
Data is sourced from official ClinicalTrials.gov public API records. Always review the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for the latest information.
Official title
Adjunctive Nitrous Oxide to Lidocaine Anesthesia During ED Incision and Drainage of Abscess in Adults: A Randomized Controlled Trial
Brief summary
Reproduced verbatim from the official ClinicalTrials.gov record. Not medical advice.
This study aims to describe the safety and efficacy of adjunctive nitrous oxide to lidocaine anesthesia in decreasing pain in adults during incision and drainage (I\&D) of cutaneous abscesses in the emergency department (ED). Incision and drainage has been considered one of the more painful procedures performed in the ED. Standard care recommends a minimum of local anesthesia, however, there is no consensus on the appropriateness of pain management during ED painful procedures, such as incision and drainage. Oligoanalgesia continues to be a problem for ED health care providers. Despite extensive research in mechanisms of pain, factors relating to inadequate pain management, and evidence-based pain management strategies, implementation of effective pain management in the ED is still lacking. Nitrous oxide is a weak sedative agent with analgesic and anxiolytic properties. Rapid onset and short duration of action, ease of use, and favorable cardio-respiratory profile makes it an ideal agent for analgesia in the ED and may provide a novel strategy for pain management in I\&D. While it has been studied an adjunct to laceration repair in children and labor in women, the use in the ED setting is not known. Adult patients capable of consenting, with simple cutaneous abscess requiring incision and drainage are the targeted population. Eligible patients who consent to the study will be randomized to one of two groups: nitrous oxide/local anesthesia or oxygen/local anesthesia. Primary endpoints assessed will be pain scores using the VAS at baseline, ten minutes after NO administration, immediately post I\&D procedure, and ten minutes after procedure completion. Additionally, secondary endpoints of patient and physician procedure satisfaction scores, total time of nitrous oxide used, and presence of adverse events, including respiratory depression defined by peripheral SaO2 below 92%, ETCO2 level above 50, a rise or decrease of 10% above or below baseline, the loss of the ETCO2 waveform for more than 15 seconds. The vital signs, medical conditions, demographics, and abscess dimensions will also be collected.
Study identification
- NCT ID
- NCT03127371
- Recruitment status
- Terminated
- Study type
- Interventional
- Phase
- Not applicable
- Enrollment
- 41 participants
Conditions and interventions
Conditions
Eligibility (public fields only)
- Age range
- 18 Years and older
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Healthy volunteers not accepted
This page does not interpret eligibility. Detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria are on the official ClinicalTrials.gov record.
Study timeline
- Start date
- Aug 31, 2016
- Primary completion
- Mar 31, 2021
- Completion
- Mar 31, 2021
- Last update posted
- Apr 26, 2021
2016 – 2021
United States locations
- U.S. sites
- 1
- U.S. states
- 1
- U.S. cities
- 1
| Facility | City | State | ZIP | Site status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Einstein Medical Center Philadelphia | Philadelphia | Pennsylvania | 19141 | — |
Site contact phone numbers, emails, and investigator names are intentionally not displayed here. Open the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for site contact information.
About this trial record page
- What this page shows
- Public field values for ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT03127371, including study identification, conditions, interventions, eligibility (age, sex, healthy volunteer), timeline, and U.S. site list.
- What this page does not do
- No medical advice, eligibility judgments, treatment recommendations, study quality scoring, or AI-generated medical summaries. No site contact phone numbers, emails, or investigator names.
- Where the data comes from
- Sourced from the official ClinicalTrials.gov public API. The official record is the source of truth.
- Last refresh
- Last update posted Apr 26, 2021 · Synced Sep 5, 2026
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Open the official record
The complete protocol, eligibility criteria, and contact information for NCT03127371 live on ClinicalTrials.gov.