Evaluation of mandibular condylar bony changes in temporomandibular disorders using Polytome-U images

The author examined bone changes from 1274 polytomographic images of 182 temporomandibular joints which showed symptoms of temporomandibular disorder and the following results were obtained ; 1. The number of temporomandibular joints which showed bone changes were 64 (35.2%) among 182 joints. 2. The age and sex distribution of 64 joints which had bone changes showed the prevalence of female (90.6%) and third decade (25.0%) followed by fourth (21.2%) and second decade (17.2%). 3. The 252 images which showed bone changes consisted of 56 images from lateral side (22.2%), 118 images from center (46.8%) and 78 images from medial side (30.9%). 4. The most frequently observed bone changes were flattening (22.7%) followed by sclerosis (19.3%) and cortical unsharpness (19.3%)