Temporomandibular Joint Arthroscopic Lysis and Lavage Compared to Arthrocentesis in Disc Displacement Without Reduction: a Randomised, Double-blind, Controlled Trial

1. BACKGROUND The temporomandibular joint (TMJ) is a bilateral joint comprised of two cartilage covered bone surfaces that articulates against each other during mouth opening and closing. A dense cartilage disc is situated between the two joint surfaces.

Disc displacement (DD) is characterised by an improper position of the TMJ disc relative to the articulating surfaces and affects up to 30% of the population. DD without reduction (DDwoR) is a sub-diagnosis of DD where the inaccurate disc position and associated inflammation hampers the TMJ movement and osteoarthritis successively develops. The affected patient suffers from reduced mouth opening capacity and pain when opening the mouth and during chewing, which leads to restrains in food intake, speech and social activities. A recent Swedish publication has shown that patients with TMJ disorders had more days of work disability (2-3 times longer) compared to a non-TMD cohort followed over a ten year period. The reliance on social security benefits in the group of patients that had TMJ surgery more than once were more accentuated compared to other TMJ disorder patients.

The primary treatment for DDwoR is non-surgical, i.e., physiotherapy, pharmacological treatment and/or occlusal splint therapy. If non-surgical treatment fails, arthroscopic lysis and lavage (ALL) or arthrocentesis (AC) might be considered. ALL is performed with a rod-shaped lens inserted into the TMJ cavity enabling direct visualisation, The operative procedure involves manipulation of disc position, release of adhesions (lysis), and irrigation (lavage) of the joint with either saline solution or Ringer's solution. Generally the procedure is performed under general anaesthesia, but there are reports on ALL performed in local anaesthesia or conscious sedation. Success rates of 75-88 % is reported. In AC, two needles are inserted into the joint cavity to irrigate the TMJ. The method does not allow visualisation of the joint. AC is often performed together with opening and closing manoeuvres of the mandible to enable manipulation of the discs position. AC is reported to be executed under general anaesthesia, but also under local anaesthesia or conscious sedation. AC is most often reported to have a higher success rate compared to ALL, with figures ranging from 66-100 %. Although, the compared figures are taken from cohort studies with no control group. There are a few randomised and controlled studies comparing ALL to AC. Fridrich et al. performed a randomised study without blinding and also incorporates two different diagnoses, DDwoR and disc displacement with reduction (DDwR). The patient sample was small, 20 patients. Murakami et al. conducted a study including three interventions: non-surgical , ALL and AC. The study was not blinded and not randomised, and 25 patients were included in the ALL-group and 20 patients in the AC group. The patients had the diagnosis DDwoR. In a third study, a total of 63 patients were treated, 33 had arthroscopy and 29 had arthrocentesis. The study was not blinded and 8 of the included patients was diagnosed with DDwR and the remaining with DDwoR. All three studies showed a better outcome for patients treated with arthroscopy, even though the result was not significant in two of the studies. In a meta-analysis published 2015 both MIO and patient-assessed TMJ pain had significantly better outcome in arthroscopy.

Synovial fluid from the TMJ has been used since the mid-90's mostly for analysing inflammatory markers. Proteomics is a relatively new technique for analysing protein profiles and has only been applied a couple of times in the field of TMJ pathology. Since the aetiology of DD is still not known, proteomics provides a comprehensive insight of the protein profile of TMJ disorders.

There are very few RCT's comparing the outcome of ALL and AC in patients with DDwoR and to this date none with a blinding. The aim of this study is to evaluate outcome of ALL and AC in treating DDwoR in a double-blind fashion. Another aim is to investigate synovial fluid protein profile in TMJ DD and to see if patient-specific differences might be connected to surgical outcome, local inflammation, local pain, or level of degenerative changes. 2. HYPOTHESIS/RESEARCH QUESTIONS ALL has a superior outcome compared to AC treating patients with DDwoR. The outcome will be longitudinally evaluated by maximum mouth opening capacity, patient reported TMJ pain and TMJ disability, and Quality of life (QoL) questionnaires at pre-determined time-points during a 24-month postoperative period.