Journal of oral and maxillofacial surgery : official journal of the American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons
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J. Oral Maxillofac. Surg. · Jan 1998
Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study Comparative Study Clinical TrialThe accuracy of clinical neurosensory testing for nerve injury diagnosis.
The accuracy of the clinical neurosensory test to diagnose trigeminal nerve injuries has never been statistically evaluated. The purpose of this study was to determine the statistical efficacy of the clinical neurosensory test using surgical findings as the "gold" standard, and to determine whether a correlation existed between the sensory impairment score obtained by preoperative testing and the degree of nerve injury found at surgery. ⋯ The NST is a clinically useful method to diagnose IAN and LN injuries. However, the NST results are less efficient for IAN injuries than LN injuries, and have a high incidence of false-positive (23%) and false-negative (40%) results when testing patients with IAN injuries. The different rates of statistical efficiency between the two groups of patients may be attributable to differences in prevalence and biologic covariates.