Sodium hyaluronate: an effective adjunct in temporomandibular joint arthrocentesis

Internal derangement of the temporomandibular joint (TMJ) is one of the most common forms of temporomandibular disorders. The minimally invasive treatments such as arthrocentesis as well as arthroscopic lysis and lavage are often used as a first-line surgical treatment or in conjunction with nonsurgical modalities with low morbidity and high efficacy. Sodium hyaluronate (SH) has been proposed as an alternative therapeutic agent with similar therapeutic effects.

A prospective study was carried out for evaluation of efficacy of TMJ arthrocentesis with and without injection of SH in management of internal derangements.

A total of 30 patients suffering from internal derangement of TMJ were selected for this study. Patients were randomly divided into the following two groups: group 1-arthrocentesis-only group and group 2-arthrocentesis + SH group. Each group constituted 15 patients.

Six-month postoperative mean mouth opening (MMO) increase was 13.61 ± 1.64 and 15.53 ± 3.01 mm in group 1 and group 2, respectively. At 6 months, there was marked improvement in masticatory efficiency with mean increase of 5.07 ± 0.13 in group 1 and 6.40 ± 0.04 in group 2. Mean pain reduction was 5.27 ± 0.67 and 6.48 ± 0.44 in group 1 and group 2, respectively.

Although our series comprised a limited number of cases and a short follow-up period, initial results suggested that arthrocentesis with SH injection seemed to be superior to art.