Lidocaine Gel May Help Ease Mammography Discomfort: Study

Lidocaine – a topical numbing gel – can come up as an antidote for uncomfortable mammograms, a new study suggests. Generous application of the topical analgesic before the screening significantly eased the associated discomfort among women, the study found.

Mammogramdefine, a dire painful procedure that screens the breast tissues for any cancerous growth, during a mammography, the breasts are squeezed and pressed between the two plates for a couple of seconds to allow the X-rays to zoom into the dense tissue.

While the American Cancerdefine Society (ACS) recommends women age 40 and over to undergo regular screenings every year or two, many women prefer skipping mammograms for its associated discomfort.

Highlighting the utmost importance of mammograms in early detection of the disease, Colleen Lambertz, a nurse practitioner at St. Luke's Mountain States Tumor Institute in Boise, Idaho remarked, “Mammography saves lives, and we would like women to know that if they're delaying or avoiding mammograms because they expect higher discomfort, they should try this product and see if it can become a better experience. It makes mammograms much more tolerable."

For the study, the researchers enrolled 418 women aged between 32 and 89, all carrying the conventional view ‘mammography is painful and unpleasant’. Randomly they were divided to groups to either receive pre-mammography acetaminophen, ibuprofen, 4% lidocaine gel, or an oral or topical placebo. All gels were applied to the breast and chest wall almost 30-65 minutes before the test.

While using the lidocaine gel significantly reduced the breast discomfort during the procedure, oral painkillers were not helpful, researchers found.

However, voting against the idea critics argue that though lidocaine gel helped ease discomfort in some women, it didn't report significantly higher satisfaction among women.

Pointing out that lidocaine gel didn't make a dramatic difference, Dr. Julia Smith, director of the Breast Cancer Screening and Prevention Program at the New York University Lynne Cohen Breast Cancer Preventive Care Program emphasized ‘the need of a better technology’ to cut discomfort.

"What this study does highlight is that women shouldn't have to undergo this kind of pain. We should have an improvement in technology. Mammograms are unpleasant, and it's going to take more than giving people Tylenol; we need better technology," Smith said.

Furthermore, the ‘gel might affect the quality of the mammogram and interfere with image quality’, Smith highlighted.

The results of the study feature in the July 22 online issue of the journal Radiology.