J Korean Soc Emerg Med.  2005 Jun;16(3):352-355.

Comparison of the Accuracies of Tw o Methods of Performing the Tongue Blade Test in Mandibular Fractures

• Yoon SK
• Choi SC
• Kim GW

Abstract

PURPOSE
This study was performed to evaluate the accuracy of two different methods of performing the tongue blade test (TBT) on patients with mandible fractures.
METHODS
A prospective randomized trial was performed over 28 months, and the accuracy of TBT for the diagnosis of patients with mandibular fractures was evaluated using the radiographic confirmative diagnosis as the gold standard. A consecutive sample of 126 patients (36 mandibular fractures) were enrolled to this study. Method A is addressed the patient's ability to grasp a tongue blade between his teeth and hold the blade against a twistling motion, and Method B is to addressed the patient's ability to grasp a tongue blade between his teeth and then to hold the tongue blade against the examiner's mild effort to remove it. We compared the accuracy of the two methods.
RESULTS
The sensitivity of method A was 95.0% (19/20), and that of method B was 93.8% (15/16). The specificities of the two methods were 68.8% and 64.4%, respectively. No statistically significant difference was found between the two methods (p>0.05).
CONCLUSIONS
Based on this study, we conclude that we can choose either of the two method and that both methods of TBT are highly effective screening tests for diagnosing mandibular fractures.

Keyword

Mandibular fractures

MeSH Terms

Diagnosis
Hand Strength
Humans
Mandible
Mandibular Fractures*
Mass Screening
Prospective Studies
Tongue*
Tooth