Stomatognathic function in juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and in developmental open-bite subjects.

Patients affected with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis present clear radiological alterations of the condyles of the temporomandibular joint (TMJ) due to the inflammatory process, with a prevalence ranging from 17 percent to 63 percent. This work is a comparison between a group of subjects with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis presenting signs and symptoms of TMT dysfunction and a group of the same age not suffering from any rheumatic morbidity, but presenting an open bite > 3 mm. The aim is to verify whether the open bite can induce an alteration in mandibular function comparable to that observed in juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. Statistically significant difference is found in the juvenile rheumatoid arthritis group only regarding spontaneous and provoked muscle pain and the lateral opening deviations of the mouth, but mostly the two groups seem alike and present the same stomatognathic pattern.