Postanesthetic Cold Sensibility Test as an Indicator for the Efficacy of Inferior Alveolar Nerve Block in Patients with Symptomatic Irreversible Pulpitis of Mandibular Molars

Table 4

Number and percentages of patients with true/false positive and negative responses to the postanesthetic cold test versus the gold standard test.

Test	Results	True results based on the gold standard test N (%)^†		Total-N (%)
		Overall true positive; (no pulpal anesthesia)	Overall true negative; (pulpal anesthesia)
Cold test	Positive; (painful response)	True positive (TP); 27 (93%)	False positive (FP); 2 (7%)	29 (53.7%)
	Negative response; (painless response)	False negative (FN); 4 (16%)	True negative (TN); 21 (84%)	25; (46.3%)
Total-N (%)		(True failure anesthesia); 31 (57.4%)	(True successful anesthesia); 23 (42.6%)	54 (100%)

^†N (%): number and frequency of patients. Failure pulpal anesthesia as indicated by the cold test. Successful pulpal anesthesia as indicated by the cold test.