The temporomandibular joint in rheumatoid arthritis. Correlations between clinical and computed tomography features.

Clinical and computed tomography (CT) examination of the temporomandibular joint (TMJ) was performed in 26 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and 26 control subjects. Each examination was scored. In the group with RA 61.2% had physical signs in the stomatognathic system compared to 42.3% in a control group (NS); 88.4% of the group with RA had erosive or cystic lesions of the TMJ compared to 57.6% of control subjects (p less than 0.05). The clinical dysfunction score did not correlate with the CT TMJ score in RA. It correlated with the number of slow acting antirheumatic drugs used, the rheumatoid factor titer and radiographic scores of the hands and cervical spine. In agreement with others, we believe that the only specific CT lesions of RA are erosions and cysts of the mandibular condyle, that there is no correlation between clinical and CT findings of TMJ in RA, and that the intensity of destructive lesions of TMJ on CT in RA is well correlated with the severity of the disease.