Lidocine Infiltration Test: An Useful Test in the Prediction of Results of Styloidectomy for Eagle’s Syndrome

Eagle’s syndrome is caused by elongated styloid process. Its accepted treatment is styloidectomy. However more than one-fourths of patients undergoing styloidectomy do not experience relief. To find the utility of the lidocaine infiltration test to predict the results of styloidectomy in patients clinically diagnosed as having stylalgia. Twenty-six patients undergoing styloidectomy for Eagle’s syndrome were included in the study. They were divided into two groups depending on their response to lidocaine infiltration in the tonsillar fossa. Patients were followed up till 3 months after styloidectomy and their pre operative visual analogue scale for pain was compared with the post operative VAS score. Majority of the patients were females and in the fifth decade of life. There were 18 patients in group I and eight patients in Group II. The groups were similar in terms of age and sex distribution and pre operative VAS score for pain. There was good corelation between post infiltration and post operative VAS scores. The test had 94.44 % sensitivity and 87.5 % specificity. The age and sex distribution and the failure rates in the present study were similar to that reported in other studies. There are many other reasons besides elongation which can cause the typical pain of stylalgia and some of them are not amenable to styloidectomy. The lidocaine infiltration test is an useful test to predict the results of styloidectomy for Eagle’s syndrome.