Towards evidence-based emergency medicine: best BETs from the Manchester Royal Infirmary. Use of lidocaine in the gastrointestinal cocktail for the treatment of dyspepsia.

A short-cut review was carried out to establish whether lidocaine is a useful adjuvant in the gastrointestinal cocktail of dyspepsia treatment. 325 citations were reviewed, of which two answered the three-part question. The clinical bottomline is that antacid alone should be used as preferred treatment for dyspesia. The addition of lidocaine and donnatal can be used on doctor's discretion in patients without contraindications to these agents.