Incidence of temporomandibular symptoms in patients with major skeletal malocclusions: a survey of oral and maxillofacial surgery training programs.

A survey was done of 116 graduate training programs in oral and maxillofacial surgery to determine (1) the percentage of patients screened for orthognathic surgery who had symptoms of temporomandibular pain and dysfunction preoperatively and (2) how many who were asymptomatic preoperatively developed temporomandibular symptoms postoperatively. Of the fifty-one programs that responded, most reported that fewer than 20% of the patients were symptomatic before surgery and that few patients had symptoms postoperatively. The implications of these findings are discussed.