Journal of oral rehabilitation
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Review Practice Guideline
Guidelines and recommendations for assessment of somatosensory function in oro-facial pain conditions--a taskforce report.
The goals of an international taskforce on somatosensory testing established by the Special Interest Group of Oro-facial Pain (SIG-OFP) under the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) were to (i) review the literature concerning assessment of somatosensory function in the oro-facial region in terms of techniques and test performance, (ii) provide guidelines for comprehensive and screening examination procedures, and (iii) give recommendations for future development of somatosensory testing specifically in the oro-facial region. Numerous qualitative and quantitative psychophysical techniques have been proposed and used in the description of oro-facial somatosensory function. The selection of technique includes time considerations because the most reliable and accurate methods require multiple repetitions of stimuli. ⋯ Based on the available literature, the German Neuropathic Pain Network test battery appears suitable for the study of somatosensory function within the oro-facial area as it is based on a wide variety of both qualitative and quantitative assessments of all cutaneous somatosensory modalities. Furthermore, these protocols have been thoroughly described and tested on multiple sites including the facial skin and intra-oral mucosa. Standardisation of both comprehensive and screening examination techniques is likely to improve the diagnostic accuracy and facilitate the understanding of neural mechanisms and somatosensory changes in different oro-facial pain conditions and may help to guide management.
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Comparative Study
Comparison of the reliability of laser Doppler flowmetry, pulse oximetry and electric pulp tester in assessing the pulp vitality of human teeth.
This study was designed to evaluate and compare the reliability of laser Doppler flowmetry (LDF), pulse oximetry (PO) and electric pulp tester (EPT) for assessing the pulpal status as a vitality test method by calculating their sensitivity, specificity and predictive values. Data were collected from 59 pairs of maxillary anterior teeth (38 pairs of central, 21 pairs of lateral incisors) in 51 patients (range 12-18years, mean age 14·6±1·73years, 28 women, 23 men). The teeth with complete endodontic fillings constituted the study group, and the healthy, contralateral teeth of the same patients were constituted the control group. ⋯ The difference between the LDF values obtained from the study, and control group was statistically significant (P=0·0001). The findings of this study indicated that LDF can reliably discriminate the vitality of the teeth with a sensitivity and specificity of 1·0 for this sample. Laser Doppler flowmetry was found to be a more reliable and effective method than PO and EPT of assessing the pulpal status of human teeth.