An Experimental Study on the Electrophysiological Evaluation of Nerve Function in Inferior Alveolar Nerve Injury - The Relationship between Nerve Action Potentials and Histomorphometric Observations

Abstract

Inferior alveolar nerve (IAN) injury is common in the field of general practice of dentistry oral and maxillofacial surgery.In order to understand the symptoms associated with IAN injury, subjective symptoms are recorded and sensory tests are used (ex: Frey tactile stimulation, 2-point discrimination, pinprick, temperature test, Semmes Weinstein pressure aethesiometer (SW Test). Unfortunately, these evaluations are determined by what the patients declare and its subjective nature makes the accurate diagnosis of nerve injury very difficult. There are cases where procedures such as nerve grafting or nerve repair surgery cannot take place due to the uncertainty of the evaluation. In other more severe cases where follow-up treatment instead of surgical procedure was undertaken after subjective evaluation, dysaesthesia occurred as neurological sequelae. Electrophysiological nerve function evaluation using sensory nerve action potential (SNAP) is important for the diagnosis and treatment of nerve injuries.The objective of this study is to improve the accuracy of nerve injury diagnosis by determining the degree of damage using SNAP and the sensory nerve conduction velocity (SCV).