Quantitative sensory testing of periauricular skin in healthy adults

The aim of this study was to investigate the test-retest reliability of quantitative sensory testing (QST) and mechanical sensitivity mapping of the periauricular skin. Twenty volunteers (10 men, 10 women) participated in two sessions at intervals of one week. Cold and warm detection threshold (CDT&WDT), cold and heat pain threshold (CPT&HPT), mechanical detection and pain threshold (MDT&MPT), pressure pain threshold (PPT) and two-point discrimination (2PD) were measured at five sites: bilateral subauricular and postauricular sites (LA, RA, LB, RB) and the dorsum of left hand (control). Pressure stimulation was applied at each of the four periauricular test sites. The test-retest reliability of the QST data implied fair to excellent agreement as evaluated by the intra-class correlation coefficients (ICC; all >0.4) for different days. There was no difference between each side in the QST parameters and mechanical sensitivity mapping (P ≥ 0.057). Significant differences between subauricular and postauricular sites were shown for WDT and PPT (P ≤ 0.028). NRS scores of mechanical sensitivity mapping showed significant effects of gender, site and point (P ≤ 0.040). QST and mechanical sensitivity mapping can be considered to be a reliable technique to assess somatosensory function of the periauricular skin.