Temporomandibular arthropathy

Abstract

The described signs, symptoms and histological changes can be ascribed to a primary degenerative disease of the mandibular condyle. A comparison between clinical features, radiographs and subsequent histology in certain cases suggests that if TM joint symptoms are severe and persistent, the damage to the articular surface of the condyle at a cellular level is worse than the radiographs might suggest. Thus cases diagnosed as intractable pain dysfunction syndrome could come to lie within the category of osteoarthrosis and practitioners should be watchful of this. It could reasonably be said that clinical, radiographic and histological expression of osteoarthrosis of the mandibular condyle is quite different from any other joint in the body, and as such it might be well to consider a different descriptive term for this condition, namely, temporomandibular arthropathy.