The diagnosis of referred orofacial dental pain

Every patient's description of the location of pain must be treated with caution. In order to arrive at a diagnosis of pain a logical method should be employed. This consists of the history and clinical examination including pulp tests and radiographs. Where the patient complains of pain on hot or cold, an attempt should be made to reproduce the patient's pain to check on the accuracy of its description and to aid in localisation. Patients frequently refer pain to previously endodontically-treated teeth. These may not be the cause of the problem. In order to facilitate the process of diagnosis the following hypothesis has been advanced. A tooth can only be the source of pain if there are objective signs associated with that tooth. Lack of response to pulp tests constitutes such a sign, provided the tooth has not previously been endodontically treated. If, however, such treatment has taken place, (regardless of whether this was well or poorly executed), a further objective sign other than lack of vitality is required before such a tooth can be implicated as the source of pain. The guidelines suggested are illustrated by means of clinical examples.