Mepivacaine is a

local anesthetic 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 an ...

of the amide type. Mepivacaine has a reasonably rapid onset (more rapid than that of

procaine Procaine is a local anesthetic drug of the amino ester group. It is most commonly used in dental procedures to numb the area around a tooth and is also used to reduce the pain of intramuscular injection of penicillin. Owing to the ubiquity ...

) and medium duration of action (shorter than that of procaine) and is marketed under various

trade name A trade name, trading name, or business name, is a pseudonym used by companies that do not operate under their registered company name. The term for this type of alternative name is a "fictitious" business name. Registering the fictitious name w ...

s including Carbocaine and Polocaine. Mepivacaine became available in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

in the 1960s. Mepivacaine is used in any infiltration and

local anesthesia Local anesthesia is any technique to induce the absence of sensation in a specific part of the body, generally for the aim of inducing local analgesia, that is, local insensitivity to pain, although other local senses may be affected as well. It ...

. It is supplied as the hydrochloride salt of the

racemate In chemistry, a racemic mixture, or racemate (), is one that has equal amounts of left- and right-handed enantiomers of a chiral molecule or salt. Racemic mixtures are rare in nature, but many compounds are produced industrially as racemates. ...

, which consists of R(-)-mepivacaine and S(+)-mepivacaine in equal proportions. These two enantiomers have markedly different pharmacokinetic properties. Mepivacaine was originally synthesized in Sweden at the laboratory of

Bofors Nobelkrut AB Bofors ( , , ) is a former Swedish arms manufacturer which today is part of the British arms concern BAE Systems. The name has been associated with the iron industry and artillery manufacturing for more than 350 years. History Located i ...

in 1956.

References

External links

Mepivacaine at RxList
Local anesthetics Piperidines Anilides AstraZeneca brands {{nervous-system-drug-stub