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Agreement between quantitative and qualitative sensory testing of changes in oro‐facial somatosensory sensitivity
Author(s) -
Agbaje J.,
De Laat A.,
Constantinus P.,
Svensson P.,
BaadHansen L.
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
journal of oral rehabilitation
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.991
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1365-2842
pISSN - 0305-182X
DOI - 10.1111/joor.12455
Subject(s) - somatosensory system , quantitative sensory testing , sensitivity (control systems) , sensory system , audiology , psychology , sensory threshold , neuroscience , medicine , cognitive psychology , engineering , electronic engineering
Summary Qualitative somatosensory testing (Qual ST ) is a simple chairside test. It can be used to roughly assess the presence or absence of altered somatosensory function. To use Qual ST clinically, it is important to assess its agreement with quantitative sensory testing ( QST ). The aims of this study were to assess the agreement between QST and Qual ST when testing the modulation of facial sensitivity by capsaicin in healthy participants and to explore the agreement between QST and Qual ST in assessing the intraoral sensory function in clinical atypical odontalgia ( AO ) patients. Eighteen healthy pain‐free adults and data from 27 AO patients were included in the study. Thirteen QST and three Qual ST parameters were evaluated at each site. Z ‐scores were computed for healthy participants, and Loss‐Gain scores were created. The agreement observed between QST and Qual ST in participants with no alterations in facial sensation (placebo) was good, that is ranging from 89% to 94%. A poorer agreement was seen after capsaicin application in all test modalities with agreement ranging from 50% to 72%. The commonest misclassification observed was participants classified as normal according to QST , but hyper‐ or hyposensitive according to Qual ST after capsaicin application, especially for cold and pinprick. A similar trend was observed in AO patients where patients classified as normal using QST were misclassified as hypersensitive and in few patients as hyposensitive by Qual ST . In conclusion, the study showed that Qual ST may be used as a screening tool in the clinical setting, especially to show that subjects have normal sensory function.