A review of temporomandibular disorders (TMDs) among patients attending the oral medicine clinic in the University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH).

Abstract

Background: Diagnosis and management of temporomandibular disorders (TMDs) is a major challenge to the dental practitioner. There are a few reports documenting the pattern of presentation and management of the TMDs in Nigeria.

Objective: To review the pattern of presentation of temporomandibular disorders in the University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH), and to compare findings with other studies.

Methods: All cases diagnosed of TM disorders diagnosed between January 2010 and August 2018 were retrieved from the ledger in the Oral Medicine clinic, University of Benin Teaching Hospital. Data on age, gender, site and treatment given were recorded from case notes. Data was analyzed using the SPSS (IBM version 21.0). The level of significance was 95% and p-values <0.05 was considered statistically significant (p<0.05).

Result: There were 83(6.9%) cases of TMJ disorders among the 1196 patients seen in the Oral Medicine clinic, with mean age of 48.5+ 18.5 years (SD), the peak prevalence was 4th-7th decades of life with a slight male preponderance (1.2:1) and equal distribution between the right (n=25, 30.1%) and left (n=25, 30.1%).  Among the diagnosed cases of TMDs, TMJ pain dysfunction (n=50, 60.2%) had the highest presentation, followed by TMJ Osteoarthritis (n=20, 24.1%), TMJ Traumatic arthritis (n=10, 12.0%), and TMJ Rheumatoid arthritis (n=3, 3.6%). Treatment was mainly conservative non- surgical including counseling, use of topical analgesics, heat massage, oral analgesics, muscle relaxants, antidepressants, antiarthritic drugs, and correction of malocclusion. Majority of the patients had combination treatment (n=53, 88.3%) while 7(11.7%) had mono-treatment therapy.

Conclusion: This study observed a relatively low prevalence of TM disorders. TMJ pain dysfunction syndrome was the most common TM disorders seen in this study. Treatment of these cases were conservative non-surgical, with most cases being combination of conservative treatment modalities.

Keywords: temporomandibular joint, disorders, oral medicine