Somatosensory Investigation of Orofacial Pain Patients

Orofacial pain, specially neuropathic orofacial pain, is a challenge of diagnosis and treatment in orofacial pain. It is associated with sensory abnormalities.With increasing life expectancy of the population is more and more common to find individuals with chronic diseases however, there is little evidence about the influence of comorbidities and medications in use on sensory thresholds of neuropathic orofacial pain. Objective: to investigate the influence of comorbidities and medication in somatosensory function of patients with orofacial neuropathic pain compared to controls.In this case-control study, 336 orofacial pain patients and controls were recruited from the Hospital das Clinicas da Faculdade de Medicina da USP were investigated about comorbidities, use of chronic medication, pain characteristics and a detailed standardized protocol of somatosensory evaluation at the trigeminal territories for cold, warm, tactile, vibration, deep, superficial and electric pain thresholds.