Cytotoxic Effect of Dental Local Anesthetics on Tissue Culture

¹ National Children's Cardiac Hospital and University of Miami, Miami, Florida

1. Nine commercial preparations of local dental anesthetics, in concentrations commonly used in dental practice, were compared as to their cytotoxic effects on monolayer cultures of monkey kidney and HeLa cells.

2. Trypan blue, 0.5 per cent aqueous solution, was employed to differentiate viable from non-viable cells following contact with the anesthetics.

3. The commercial preparation of anesthetic No. 3 was found to be the most cytotoxic; anesthetic No. 6 was slightly less cytotoxic; of the remaining anesthetics, anesthetics Nos. 1 and 2 were the least cytotoxic. All anesthetics studied were completely cytotoxic in 2-3 hours.

4. Tissue-culture techniques as investigative procedures should be explored further to determine their usefulness in quantitative biologic studies.