Objective: To analyze the treatment outcome of the two methods of intra-capsular injection of temporomandibular joints, the upper capsule alone and both the upper and lower capsules, for different subtypes of temporomandibular disorders.
Methods: A retrospective cohort study was designed, based on the outpatients and the data which were obtained from West China Stomatological Hospital, Sichuan University. SPSS10.0 software was used to analyze the data, which were collected before the operation and one week after the operation.
Results: 294 patients were followed up. The group of double capsules injection gained better prospect, not only on the mouth-opening but also the pain-cured, especially in two subgroups such as the anterior dislocation of disc without reduction and the osteoarthritis of TMJ.
Conclusion: It seems that the double capsules injection of sodium hyaluronate for TMD can gain better outcome than the upper capsule injection, but a clinical randomized controlled test and a long-term follow-up study of the two methods are needed to verify this finding.