Journal of dental anesthesia and pain medicine
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The first clinical application of nitrous oxide (N2O) was in 1844, by an American dentist named Horace Wells who used it to control pain during tooth extraction. Since then, N2O has shared a 170-year history with modern dental anesthesia. ⋯ Numerous studies have reported that N2O can be used safely and effectively as a procedural sedation and analgesia (PSA) agent. However, N2O can lead to the irreversible inactivation of vitamin B12, which is essential for humans; although rare, this can be fatal in some patients.