The author had taken thermographs of 155 subjects, who visited Yongdong Severance Hospital from October 1988 to March, 1993 with TMJ pain and dysfunction and subsequently underwent either operative or surgical treatments.
After analyzing thermographic patterns according to a degree of TMJ disc displacement, history, and clinical correlations, the author had made following conclusions.
1. In 155 patients who received either conservative or surgical treatment, 81.9% showed abnormal thermographic pattern at the site of complaint.
2. Sensitivity on thermography was observed in 82.6% of pain group and 85.4% of mouth opening limitation grpup with little difference between hyperthermic and hypothermic variations.
3. Internal derangements group showed no significant variation in thermographic pattern except hypothermic tendency in operation group with anterior displacement with reduction.
4. In patients with both muscleache and TMJ disorder, relatively high sensitivity (91.7%) was observed with diffuse thermographic pattern, whereas internal derangement patients showed localized pattern.
5. Application of D. I. T. I. may be practical as an adjunctive diagnostic method in TMJ disorder, especially in the differential diagnosis diganosis of muscleache and internal derangement, and in the localization of pain site.
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