Taste perception after lingual nerve repair

This retrospective study evaluates patients' perception of taste after lingual nerve injury and repair. It is hypothesized that return of taste is a distinct neurophysiologic phenomenon related to specialized taste physiology and it does not correlate with specific, objective sensory return.

During 1995 to 1996, 30 patients underwent microsurgical repair of lingual nerve injuries. Of these, 22 patients met the inclusion criteria for this study. Chart review documented the date and cause of injury, sensory examination, injury classification, procedures, operative findings, and postoperative sensory examination. A telephone questionnaire addressed whole mouth taste perception with normal daily eating. The questions asked were: 1) Was your sense of taste changed or abnormal after your nerve injury? and 2) Did your sense of taste recover after nerve repair?

All patients had a postinjury, prerepair sensory deficit on levels A, B, and C testing: neurotmesis (n = 14); and axonotmesis (n = 8). The mean time from injury to repair was 16 weeks (range, 3 to 41 weeks). Operative findings confirmed 12 Sunderland Class IV (partial transection) injuries and 10 Class V (complete transection) injuries. All patients had primary microsurgical repair without a nerve graft or entubulization. Postoperatively, 18 patients showed marked improvement in sensory testing at levels A, B and C, and 4 patients showed no significant change. A telephone interview regarding whole mouth taste perception indicated that 20 of 22 patients perceived changed, abnormal taste postinjury and pre-repair. Two patients reported normal taste perception. Postrepair, only 7 of 20 patients reported an increase or return of taste perception to a more normal level. The mean follow-up time was 80 weeks.

Most patients (20 of 22) with lingual nerve injuries in this study perceived whole mouth taste as abnormal. After nerve repair, although 82% (18 of 22) of patients had improvement in somatosensory function, whole mouth taste was perceived as improved by only 35% (7 of 20). It is proposed that the perception of whole mouth taste may not be related to the ability to perceive multiple sensory modalities, but rather to special sensory (taste) modality perception. Also, central changes may occur in the special sensory fibers that impact on the brainstem nucleus for taste (nucleus solitarius) and therefore the patient's perception of taste.