title: Protracted delay in taste sensation recovery after surgical lingual nerve repair: a case report.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Lingual nerve injury is sometimes caused by dental treatment. Many kinds of treatment have been reported, but many have exhibited poor recovery. Here the authors report changes in somatosensory and chemosensory impairments during a long-term observation after lingual nerve repair.
  
  
  METHODS
  A 30-year-old Japanese woman claimed dysesthesia and difficulty eating. Quantitative sensory test results indicated complete loss of sensation in the right side of her tongue. She underwent a repair surgery involving complete resection of her lingual nerve using a polyglycolic acid tube containing collagen 9 months after the injury. A year after the operation, her mechanical touch threshold recovered, but no other sensations recovered. Long-term observation of her somatosensory and chemosensory function after the nerve repair suggested that recovery of taste sensation was greatly delayed compared with that of somatosensory function.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This case shows characteristic changes in somatosensory and chemosensory recoveries during 7 postoperative years and suggests that taste and thermal sensations require a very long time to recover after repair surgery.
authors.affiliation: Division of Dental Anesthesiology, Department of Tissue Regeneration and Reconstruction, Niigata University Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences, Course for Oral Sciences, 2-5274 Gakkocho-dori, Chuo-ku, Niigata, 951-8514, Japan. seo@dent.niigata-u.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Kenji
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Seo
authors.forename: Yuji
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Inada
authors.forename: Makoto
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Terumitsu
authors.forename: Tatsuo
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nakamura
authors.forename: Keiji
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Shigeno
authors.forename: Yutaka
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Tanaka
authors.forename: Tatsuru
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Tsurumaki
authors.forename: Shigenobu
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kurata
authors.forename: Hitoshi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Matsuzawa