Abstract
Over six years, a long-term follow-up study after disk repositioning surgery was carried out in nine patients with 10 temporomandibular joints (TMJ). The patients consisted of three males and six females aged: 8 to 56 years when they had surgery. The surgical procedure was full thickness disk plication surgery performed on six right and two left unilateral and one bilateral TMJ. The preoperative jaw opening degree was 21.5 mm in average. The follow-up period ranged from six years and one month to seven years and four months. The follow-up study was composed of a questionnaire for evaluation of pain and TMJ dysfunction, clinical examination, and radiographic observation. In three patients, MRI follow-up study was carried out.
As a result, the conditions of eight patients were judged to be excellont, one patient was judged to be good, and no patient was judged to be poor. All patients showed sufficient range of jaw motion, and no pain nor occasional mild pain.
Few patients disclosed inability of mastication of hard food but improved as compared to that condition in the preoperative status. The study disclosed the postoperative long-term stable condition after TMJ disk repositioning surgery.
