Temporomandibular disorders: MR assessment of inflammatory changes in the posterior disk attachment during the menstrual cycle.
OBJECTIVE
Our goal was to correlate the menstrual cycle with joint pain, MR evidence of the disk, and posterior disk attachment in patients with temporomandibular disorders.


METHODS
Forty-two women underwent MRI involving conventional T1-and T2-weighted gadolinium-enhanced fat-suppressed SE imaging sequences.


RESULTS
There was a strong statistical difference in the degree of joint pain between proliferated phase and secretory phase groups (p < 0.005). Joint pain had a tendency to increase at the secretory phase. Significantly less contrast enhancement of the posterior disk attachment was observed in the proliferated phase than in the secretory phase (p < 0.001) or menstrual phase (p < 0.01). In addition, anterior disk displacement without reduction of the temporomandibular joint was closely associated with joint pain.


CONCLUSIONS
Our results suggest that positional changes of the disk and the menstrual cycle may play a role in the degree of joint pain and inflammatory pathology of the posterior disk attachment.
Suenaga
S
S
Department of Dental Radiology, Kagoshima University Dental School, Japan. suenaga@denta.hal.kagoshima-u.ac.jp
Abeyama
K
K
Indo
H
H
Shigeta
K
K
Noikura
T
T
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D003287:Contrast Media; D005260:Female; D019786:Gadolinium DTPA; D006801:Humans; D007249:Inflammation; D016014:Linear Models; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008597:Menstrual Cycle; D010147:Pain Measurement; D019224:Temporomandibular Joint Disc / Q000473:pathology*; D013705:Temporomandibular Joint Disorders / Q000473:pathology*
D003287:Contrast Media; D019786:Gadolinium DTPA