AUTOGENOUS AURICULAR CARTILAGE GRAFT FOLLOWED BY DISCECTOMY OF THE TEMPOROMANDIBULAR JOINT

악관절원판 절제술 후 이개연골 이식

Arthrosis of the temporomandibular joint is defined as a disease of a joint with chief complaint of pain, clicking, limited jaw movements. Generally, most patients with the temporomandibular arthrosis can be treated conservatively with muscle relaxation therapy combined with mandibular repositioning prostheses, followed by occlusal equilibration, restorative dentistry and/or orthodontics, and many other forms of treatment. In case prior nonsurgical treatment proved to be ineffective or the disease is chronic and severe, surgical operation is recommended. For patients with arthrosis of the temporomandibular joint, only discectomy as therapeutic method of the surgical treatment should not be applied and the removed articular disc of the temporomandibular joint should be replaced. Allograft such as Proplast-Teflon, Silastic, etc have been used as replacements of removed articular disc. However, these allograft materials have caused complications such as inflammatory changes, foreign body reactions. As a result, a replacement material which is autogenous, space occupying, easy to harvest and less inflammatory change has been developed. Auricular cartilage with perichondrium satisfies many of these requirements. The apparent advantages of autogenous auricular cartilage as an interpositional graft after a discectomy are as follows, (1) the form of the external ear corresponds to joint morphology, (2) a graft of adequate size can be harvested, (3) the form of the external ear remains unchanged after surgery, (4) the graft can be obtained adjacent to the surgical site, (5) biologically acceptable material is used, (6) the additional expense of allogenic graft is avoided. Because we considered autogenous auricular cartilage as a good replacement material, removed articular disc has been replaced with fresh autogenous auricular cartilage in the case of three patients. The result of the treatment is favorable, and the cases being presented here.