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Salivary gland and temporomandibular joint involvement in rheumatoid arthritis: relation to disease activity
Author(s) -
Moen K,
Bertelsen LT,
Hellem S,
Jonsson R,
Brun JG
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
oral diseases
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.953
H-Index - 87
eISSN - 1601-0825
pISSN - 1354-523X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1601-0825.2004.01054.x
Subject(s) - medicine , temporomandibular joint , rheumatoid arthritis , erythrocyte sedimentation rate , saliva , gastroenterology , salivary gland , pathology
Objectives: To study temporomandibular joint (TMJ) involvement, salivary gland dysfunction and oral mucosal lesions in rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and to investigate the relationship to general disease activity. Subjects and methods: The TMJ dysfunction index ( D i ), mean salivary flow and disease activity score (DAS28), were calculated for 50 RA‐patients, and 23 non‐RA patients (controls). Results: Median D i was 5.5 (range: 0–21) for the RA‐patients compared with 2.0 (range: 0–9) for the controls ( P < 0.0001). Pain on movement of the TMJ ( P = 0.015), muscular pain ( P = 0.006), TMJ pain ( P = 0.019) and D i as a total ( P = 0.009), significantly correlated with DAS28. Mean resting whole saliva (RWS) flow was 2.6 (s.d. 2.4) ml per 15 min for the RA‐patients and 4.5 (s.d. 3.0) for the controls ( P = 0.003). RWS correlated positively with haemoglobin ( P = 0.021) and negatively with Westergren erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) ( P = 0.029). No major differences in frequency of oral mucosal lesions were seen between RA‐patients and controls. Conclusions: Higher frequency of TMJ and salivary gland dysfunction in RA‐patients compared with controls has been demonstrated. RA disease activity is associated with hyposalivation and TMJ dysfunction.