• Daniel Chavarría-Bolaños, Laura Rodríguez-Wong, Danny Noguera-González, Vicente Esparza-Villalpando, Mauricio Montero-Aguilar, and Amaury Pozos-Guillén.
• Facultad de Odontología, Universidad de Costa Rica, San José, Costa Rica.
• Pain Res Manag. 2017 Jan 1; 2017: 3108940.

IntroductionThe inferior alveolar nerve block (IANB) is the most common anesthetic technique used on mandibular teeth during root canal treatment. Its success in the presence of preoperative inflammation is still controversial. The aim of this study was to evaluate the sensitivity, specificity, predictive values, and accuracy of three diagnostic tests used to predict IANB failure in symptomatic irreversible pulpitis (SIP).MethodologyA cross-sectional study was carried out on the mandibular molars of 53 patients with SIP. All patients received a single cartridge of mepivacaine 2% with 1 : 100000 epinephrine using the IANB technique. Three diagnostic clinical tests were performed to detect anesthetic failure. Anesthetic failure was defined as a positive painful response to any of the three tests. Sensitivity, specificity, predictive values, accuracy, and ROC curves were calculated and compared and significant differences were analyzed.ResultsIANB failure was determined in 71.7% of the patients. The sensitivity scores for the three tests (lip numbness, the cold stimuli test, and responsiveness during endodontic access) were 0.03, 0.35, and 0.55, respectively, and the specificity score was determined as 1 for all of the tests. Clinically, none of the evaluated tests demonstrated a high enough accuracy (0.30, 0.53, and 0.68 for lip numbness, the cold stimuli test, and responsiveness during endodontic access, resp.). A comparison of the areas under the curve in the ROC analyses showed statistically significant differences between the three tests (p < 0.05).ConclusionNone of the analyzed tests demonstrated a high enough accuracy to be considered a reliable diagnostic tool for the prediction of anesthetic failure.

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