International Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery
Leading Research Paper
TMJ DisordersQuantitative analysis of the elastic fibres in the human temporomandibular articular disc and its attachments
TMJ Disorders
Section snippets
Materials and methods
The study material consisted of seven left human TMJs with their anatomical environments. The specimens were removed from three women and four men whose age ranged from 57 to 82 years old at the date of their death. The selected discs were judged to be free of pathosis and fulfilled Scapino's criteria22: smooth articular surfaces, the posterior band of the disc situated above or only slightly anterior to the summit of the condyle in all regions, biconcave articular disc in sections
Results
The elastic fibre densities of the five anatomic stuctures were examined, i.e. the anterior band, the intermediate zone, the posterior band, the upper bilaminary zone and the lower bilaminary zone at the three sample locations, medial, central and lateral, and are summarized with standard error and number of observations (Table 1, Fig. 2). The elastic fibre density scored from 0 to 0.687 and its distribution is reported in Fig. 3. The mean elastic fibre density for the five structures and the
Discussion
Few studies have aimed at quantifying the elastic fibres in the human TMJ disc and its connective structures. Elastic fibres appear in smaller numbers in the TMJ disc anatomic structures than in skin or other elastic tissues of the human body15. Gross et al.10 carried out a quantitative study on disc samples removed from patients treated for antero-medial or complete displacement of the TMJ disc and for whom discectomy was indicated. The mean age of their patients was 32.3 years. By contrast to
Acknowledgements
To Jean-Marie LE MINOR – Institut d’Anatomie Normale (EA 3428), Faculté de Médecine de Strasbourg, France.
To Hervé MEMBRE – Laboratoire de Biologie Expérimentale et d’Immunologie, Faculté des Sciences de Nancy, France.
This study was conducted within the research program 2004 of the DEA de Biomorphologie Quantitative et Variabilité de la Forme Humaine, Université Paris V.
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