A tomographic study of the condyle/fossa relationship in patients with TMJ dysfunction.

Abstract

AbstractThe authors undertook a tomographic study to evaluate the positional relationship of the bony components of the temporomandibular articulation. The sample group consisted of 35 patients with symptoms involving the temporomandibular joint. These were compared to a control group of 19 asymptomatic subjects who had “normal” occlusions. The condylar positions of the symptomatic and the asymptomatic TMJs of the sample group were compared with each other and with those of the control group.Each of the subjects gave a complete dental history and underwent thorough intra- and extraoral examination. The authors used a submental vertex radiograph to determine the center of each condyle and the horizontal condylar angulation for each subject. The two values obtained from this were used to take a selective tomogram, in centric relation, of the condyles of all the subjects. An anterior prosthesis was used to obtain centric relation in each case.The tomograms obtained from these subjects were enlarged ten times...