Analgesia in Transcutaneous Laryngeal Botulinum Toxin Injections: A Randomized Crossover Trial.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVES: There is an absence of data in the literature regarding methods to improve the patient experience during the performance of awake in-office laryngeal injections. This study sought to evaluate whether the use of local anesthetic or a vibrating instrument decreased overall pain experienced by patients with laryngeal dystonia, frequently referred to as spasmodic dysphonia (SD), undergoing transcervical botulinum toxin injections. METHODS: This was an unblinded, prospective randomized control trial with a crossover design where each patient received transcutaneous transcricothyroid injection of botulinum toxin with alternating use of no anesthesia, local anesthesia (2% lidocaine in 1100,000 epinephrine), and vibrating instrument in three consecutive laryngeal injections to treat adductor SD. Patients were randomized to the order they received these treatments. Patients measured pain on a 0-10 visual analogue scale (VAS) and selected their preferred technique after receiving all three analgesic modalities. RESULTS: Thirty-two patients completed the study. There was no statistically significant difference in pain between the three analgesic techniques (p = 0.38). The most preferred analgesic technique was the vibrating wand (44% (14/32)). Lidocaine was the second most preferred (37% (12/32)) and 19% (6/32) of patients preferred nothing. When combining the wand and nothing groups, 63% of patients preferred one of these two methods (95% exact CI 44%-79%). CONCLUSION: There was no statistically significant difference in median pain experienced by patients during laryngeal botulinum toxin injection between these different analgesic modalities. More than half of the patients selected a preference for a technique that did not include lidocaine. This data supports individualization of analgesia during transcutaneous laryngeal injections. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE 2 Laryngoscope, 1342277-2281, 2024.