Evaluation of the neurosensory deficiencies of oral and maxillofacial region following surgery

Maxillofacial neurosensory deficiencies may be caused by various surgical procedures such as tooth extraction, osteotomies, preprosthetic procedures, excision of tumors or cysts, surgery of the TMJ and surgical treatment of fractures and cleft lip/palate. These deficiencies may be intolerable for the patient, mainly because of the elective nature of the procedures such as osteotomies. In this study, a retrospective evaluation of incidence of neurosensory deficiencies (NSD) in 227 patients who underwent different kinds of surgeries in the maxillofacial region is presented. Clinical neurosensory testing such as two-point discrimination, static light touch, brush directional stroke, pin-prick, thermal discrimination and dental vitality tests were used for evaluation. All the patients were grouped according to the surgical procedures and all of them were evaluated at least one year post operation. It was concluded that osteotomies, especially sagittal split ramus osteotomies, have the highest incidence of postoperative NSD.