The upper airways obstruction is different in TMD patients?

The field of sleep respiratory disorders and their influence on pain are in the early stage and few studies investigated the relationship respiratory airflow and TMD patients. The results gained can contribute to understand the physiology and clinical approach on patients with TMD and sleep apnea. Objective: To investigate the hypothesis that the obstruction sites (naso and oropharynx) and frequency in healthy and TMD patients could have a distinct prevalence. Methods: The study design was transversal and double-blinded. We analyzed a control group of 74 consecutive healthy patients, and a group of 74 consecutive TMD patients, enrolled at UERJ Faculty of Dentistry (general clinic and TMD and Orofacial pain clinic respectively). They did not have previous history of smoking or respiratory disease. All of the TMD patients had pain level higher than 5 in VAS scale. Their respiratory airflow was measured by the Forced Oscillation Technique (FOT), from the nose and from the mouth at a frequency of 5Hz, to determine the obstruction in naso and oropharynx. Fisher exact test was used to compare the control and TMD groups. Results: The findings demonstrated a not significant association between the obstruction (p=0.69) in the control and TMD groups. The obstruction in nasopharynx, oropharynx, and both occurred similarly between the groups: The obstruction absence was most frequent in both groups.

Conclusions: The naso or oropharynx obstruction frequency were equally distributed between healthy and TMD patients. There was not significant difference in the airflow between the groups.