Treatment of temporomandibular arthropathy

The favorable spontaneous course of TMA indicates a conservation approach to treatment. One-half of the percent 119 patients were either not treated or treated by physiatric measures only. One-third of the patients were treated by pivotation, whereby TMJ pain was relieved within an average of 2 months. Pivotation seemed to prolong the spontaneous course of TMA. Steroids were injected intraarticularly in one-fifth of the patients, whereby TMJ pain was relieved within an average of 5 d. There were, however, symptoms other than pain that tended to persist after steroid injection. The various treatments did not result in any lasting differences in mandibular mobility. Pivotation and steroid injection seemed to result in a higher frequency of irregularity of the mandibular condyle as seem in transpharyngeal radiographs.