Volume 26 - Issue 4

Dr. William Farrar may have had the greatest impact ever on the dental medical community involved with TMJ dysfunction with his pioneering anatomical and clinical studies into how the human jaw joints function. His death on September 17, 1985 was a blow to all who understood and benefited from his contributions. His discovery of how the disk functions in the TMJ made general dentists and many specialists rea1ize, for the first time, that the condyle ...

The exciting Beijing summer Olympics have ended and the symbolic Olympic flame has begun its journey to London, England. Our staff at the CRANIO journal has begun our own transfer of journal knowledge into a user-friendly format that will allow downloadable files any time or place that you have an Internet connection. We hope to be up and running with a new website early in 2009. This will be the single most significant change in ...

Those engaged in any type of pain practice will encounter patients who have seen many practitioners. This is especially true for clinicians who treat craniofacial pain and temporomandibular disorders. In this retrospective study of 300 patients seeking treatment for various types of craniofacial pain, the average age was 43.05 years. A mean average of 3.92 clinicians was consulted with the range of practitioners being one to 26. The average time of pain was ...

The purpose of this research was to determine a potential reference point for measurement of signal intensity of bone marrow of the condyle on proton density-weighted images (PDW) prior to analysis of bone marrow abnormality related to symptomatic osteoarthritis of the temporomandibular joint (TMJ). The study was based on 79 joints in 41 patients. The regions of interest (ROI) were placed over the bone marrow of the condyle and four other structures.  It was hypothesized ...

The instantaneous center of rotation has been used to describe sagittal plane kinematics of mandibular opening and closing. Although, lateral excursions are also important because the closing pathways of masticatory movements frequently coincide with those of lateral excursions with occlusal contacts, there are no similar descriptions of mandibular lateral excursions. To compensate for this deficiency, lateral excursions of 20 women were recorded in this study. Reference points around each subject’s mandible were tracked in ...

This study was designed to determine the effect of the occlusal scheme on masseter EMG activity at different jaw posture tasks. The sample included 30 healthy subjects with natural dentition and bilateral molar support, 15 with bilateral canine guidance, and 15 with bilateral group function. An inclusion criterion was that subjects had to be free of signs and symptoms of any dysfunction of the masticatory system. Bipolar surface electrodes were located on the left and ...

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the analgesic effect of Low Intensity Laser Therapy (LILT) and its influence on masticatory efficiency in patients with temporomandibular dysfunction (TMD). This study was performed using a random, placebo-controlled, and double-blind research design. Fourteen patients were selected and divided into two groups (active and placebo). Infrared laser (780 nm, 70 mw, 60s, 105J/cm2) was applied precisely and continuously into five points of the temporomandibular joint (TMJ ...

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of sleep bruxism on periodontal sensation and tooth displacement in the molar region. Twenty-eight (28) subjects lacking objective or subjective abnormalities in stomatognathic function were divided into two groups representing bruxers (n=14) and controls (n=14). Sleep bruxism was confirmed based on the nocturnal electromyography activity of the masseter muscle. Periodontal sensation was assessed based on interocclusal tactile threshold (ITT), which refers to the ...

Tooth grinding during sleep is thought to be one of the important factors causing oral diseases. However, no evidence is available regarding the relationship between the dental status and tooth contact during sleep bruxism. The purpose of this clinical study was to investigate the relationship between oral diseases and tooth grinding patterns during sleep bruxism. Fifty subjects (21 men and 29 women) were selected. The clinical attachment level, tooth mobility, noncarious cervical lesion (NCL) and ...

Rhinoliths are calcareous concretions, consisting mainly of calcium and magnesium carbonates and phosphates. They can vary in size and shape, from small bodies to massive growths, and may invade adjacent structures. A 75-year-old female with a history of purulent discharge, nasal obstruction, and headache was observed in the ENT Department, University of Rome “Tor Vergata.” Clinical examination revealed a giant rhinolith completely obstructing the right nasal cavity. Curiously, a dental CT scan showed a bony ...