Treatment of Temporomandibular Joint Disorders by Ultrashort Wave and Extracorporeal Shock Wave: A Comparative Study

BACKGROUND: This study was carried out to compare the therapeutic efficacy of extracorporeal shock wave (ESW) and ultrashort wave (UW) for temporomandibular joint disorder (TMD). MATERIAL/METHODS: A total of 80 patients with myofascial pain and TMD were enrolled in this study. The subjects were randomized to receive ESW or UW treatments. Patients in the ESW group received 1 ESW treatment for 4 weeks and patients in the US group were given US treatment once a day for 5 days per week for 4 weeks. The pain was measured using visual analog scale (VAS) and mouth opening was determined as pain-free maximum mouth opening (MMO) before and 4 weeks after the treatments. Other parameters assessed included functional indexes of temporomandibular joint such as mandibular movement (MM), joint noise (JN), joint press (JP), and disability index (DI). RESULTS: After therapy, VAS, MMO, MM, JN, JP, and DI in ESW group, and VAS in UW group were significantly improved (P<0.05) as compared to before therapy. VAS, MMO, and the functional indexes of temporomandibular joint in the ESW group were significantly better than those in the UW group (1.79 vs. 2.00, 3.23 vs. 2.03, 1.79 vs. 2.41, 1.45 vs. 2.27, 1.55 vs. 2.59, and 3.30 vs. 4.79, respectively. P<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: ESW significantly reduces pain and improves the functional indexes of temporomandibular joint and mouth opening limit for TMD patients as compared with UW therapy.