Imaging, histopathological degree of degeneration and clinical findings - Do these correlate in patients with temporomandibular joint disorders.

The gold standard for temporomandibular joint imaging is magnetic resonance imaging, although there are still pathological findings that cannot be seen in MRI but in surgery and the subsequent histological analysis only. The main goal of this investigation was to validate the MRI score used by histopathological findings as well as clinical findings. In this retrospective study 39 patients were included; 38 of which underwent unilateral and 1 underwent bilateral discectomy. MRI findings were graded according to the score by Wurm. Histopathological analysis was performed in hematoxylin-eosin staining and graded in accordance with the scores by Krenn and by Leonardi. For valuation of preoperative pain values of the temporomandibular joint operated on the numeric rating scale was utilized. Correlations were verified by Spearman-Rho. The MRI scores on average showed significantly lower scores for the discs of the operated temporomandibular joint than for the discs of the non-operated side(p<.01). No significant correlations between MRI findings, histopathological findings and pain intensities could be observed. Thus unsuspicious morphology of the TMJ and the articular disc in MRI is no guarantee for the absence of cartilage-degeneration. Further investigations utilizing T2 cartilage mapping could possibly show better correlations between the temporomandibular joint's degree of degeneration and imaging results.