Sensory disturbances to the peripheral branches of the trigeminal nerve can significantly disrupt patients’ lives, affecting speech, mastication, food and liquid competence and daily activities. These injuries often result from the removal of impacted third molars, but other causes include orthognathic surgery, endodontic surgery, implant placement, fractures and maxillofacial pathology treatment. While some trigeminal nerve injuries are unavoidable, precise surgical techniques and improved imaging can reduce their incidence. Practitioners must explain the risks during informed consent, recognize and document nerve injuries and ensure timely treatment or referral to specialists in microsurgical techniques for optimal sensory recovery. This session will review the etiologies of trigeminal nerve injury, neurosensory testing and documentation, classification schemes, treatment indications and referrals, microsurgical techniques, adjunctive materials and outcome assessments.
Learning Objectives:
At the conclusion of this presentation, participants should be able to:
Recognize and perform sensory testing with appropriate documentation of nerve injuries.
Describe different surgical modalities and adjunct materials to reconstruct damaged branches of the trigeminal nerve.
Evaluate sensory outcomes from trigeminal nerve microsurgery.
