Orotracheal intubation and temporomandibular disorder: a longitudinal controlled study

To determine the incidence of signs and symptoms of temporomandibular disorder in elective surgery patients who underwent orotracheal intubation.

This was a longitudinal controlled study with two groups. The study group included patients who underwent orotracheal intubation and a control group. We used the American Academy of Orofacial Pain questionnaire to assess the temporomandibular disorder signs and symptoms one-day postoperatively (T1), and the patients' baseline status prior to surgery (T0) was also recorded. The same questionnaire was used after three months (T2). The mouth opening amplitude was measured at T1 and T2. We considered a p value of less than 0.05 to be significant.

We included 71 patients, with 38 in the study group and 33 in the control. There was no significant difference between the groups in age (study group: 66.0 [52.5-72.0]; control group: 54.0 [47.0-68.0]; p=0.117) or in their belonging to the female gender (study group: 57.9%; control group: 63.6%; p=0.621). At T1, there were no statistically significant differences between the groups in the incidence of mouth opening limitation (study group: 23.7% vs.

18.2%; p=0.570) or in the mouth opening amplitude (study group: 45.0 [40.0-47.0] vs.

46.0 [40.0-51.0]; p=0.278). At T2 we obtained similar findings. There was no significant difference in the affirmative response to all the individual questions in the American Academy of Orofacial Pain questionnaire.

In our population, the incidence of signs and symptoms of temporomandibular disorder of muscular origin was not different between the groups.