Perioperative trigeminocardiac reflex in patients undergoing surgical treatment of temporomandibular joint ankylosis: A study

PURPOSE: The behavior of trigeminocardiac reflex (TCR) is limited to few case reports only in maxillofacial surgery, especially for temporomandibular joint (TMJ) ankylosis cases. The present study aims to find out the incidence of bradycardia due to TCR during intraoperative forceful mouth opening in TMJ ankylosis patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A prospective, unicentric observational study was conducted selecting those patients who were planned for osteoarthrectomy with interpositional gap arthroplasty under general anesthesia. Sixty cases of TMJ ankylosis were randomly selected from December 2018 to-03-2020. Predictor variables were patient age, gender, and type of ankylosis, and outcome variables were pulse rate, mean arterial blood pressure (MABP), and oxygen saturation level (SPO(2)). Data were recorded at baseline and during intraoperative mouth opening via heister jaw stretcher. A Chi-square test was used for testing the association between variables. P values were considered statistically significant at <0.05. RESULTS: The sample size of 60 subjects has been divided into two age groups (10–19) years and (20–40) years. The mean standard deviation age of the patients was 18.32 ± 6.81 years. About 63.3% were male. Out of 60 cases, 14 patients developed bradycardia. The frequency of bradycardia was found 23.3%. According to logistic regression analysis, age and type of ankylosis were the significant predictors of bradycardia. CONCLUSION: We conclude that bradycardia due to TCR in TMJ ankylosis patients is not an uncommon entity. Incidences are more prevalent in the age group of 10–19 years and type IV bony ankylosis. Male had a high incidence of bradycardia though P value was nonsignificant.