Adaptive remodeling of the rabbit temporomandibular joint following discectomy and dietary variations.

This study evaluates the healing of the rabbit temporomandibular joint (TMJ) following discectomy in four groups of animals fed a ground diet for 3 consecutive months (group 1), a ground diet for 1 month followed by 2 months of a coarse diet (group 2), a ground diet for 6 consecutive months (group 3), or a ground diet for 3 months followed by a coarse diet for 3 months (group 4), in order to evaluate the effects of changing the diet texture following discectomy. After 3 and 6 months, histologic evaluation demonstrated that 1) an early hyperplastic response in the fibrocartilage regressed in the later period regardless of diet, and 2) switching the ground diet to a hard diet caused degenerative scores to increase after both 1 and 3 months.