Citation:
Pattern Matching on Indexed Columns
When you use LIKE to search an indexed column for a pattern, Oracle can use the index to improve the statement's performance if the leading character in the pattern is not "%" or "_". In this case, Oracle can scan the index by this leading character. If the first character in the pattern is "%" or "_", then the index cannot improve the query's performance because Oracle cannot scan the index.
Car effectivement il suffit de regarder si le premier caractere n'est pas un %