A local anesthetic (LA) is a medication that causes absence of pain sensation. In the context of surgery, a local anesthetic creates an absence of pain in a specific location of the body without a loss of consciousness, as opposed to a general anesthetic. When it is used on specific nerve pathways (local anesthetic nerve block), paralysis (loss of muscle power) also can be achieved. Examples
Short Duration & Low Potency
Procaine
Chloroprocaine
Medium Duration & Potency
Lidocaine
Prilocaine
High Duration & Potency
Tetracaine
Bupivacaine
Cinchocaine
Ropivacaine
Clinical LAs belong to one of two classes: aminoamide and aminoester local anesthetics. Synthetic LAs are structurally related to cocaine. They differ from cocaine mainly in that they have a very low abuse potential and do not produce hypertension or (with few exceptions) vasoconstriction. They are used in various techniques of local anesthesia such as:

Topical anesthesia (surface)
Topical administration of cream, gel, ointment, liquid, or spray of anaesthetic dissolved in DMSO or other solvents/carriers for deeper absorption
Infiltration
Brachial plexus block
Epidural (extradural) block
Spinal anesthesia (subarachnoid block)
IontophoresisThe suffix "-caine" at the ends of these medication names was extracted from the word "cocaine", because cocaine was formerly used as a local anesthetic. Medical uses
Acute pain
Acute pain may occur due to trauma, surgery, infection, disruption of blood circulation, or many other conditions in which tissue injury occurs. In a medical setting, pain alleviation is desired when its warning function is no longer needed. Besides improving patient comfort, pain therapy can also reduce harmful physiological consequences of untreated pain.Acute pain can often be managed using analgesics.
Research
Using CRISP gene editing technology in animal models, researchers have been able to eliminate the genes responsible for symptoms of opisthorchiasis, which may lead to further research toward novel treatment and control of this disease and its sequelae. References


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