Introduction:

The treatment of temporomandibular joint (TMJ) disorders is still controversial. TMJ arthrocentesis (AC) is a minimally invasive procedure that can be associated with the intra-articular injection of various therapeutic drugs, including corticosteroids (CS), with no current consensus on which offers the best results. The aim of this review is to evaluate if the use of AC associated with intra-articular injection of CS provides better results in terms of pain reduction and improvement of mandibular function in patients with TMJ disorders compared to other treatments.

Material and methods:

Following the protocol on the PRISMA guidelines and after applying previously established inclusion and exclusion criteria, a systematic review has been carried out of the existing articles in PubMed which have been published in the last 10 years and focus on the use of CS associated with AC of the TMJ.

Results:

A total of 167 articles were obtained after the initial search, of which 10 were finally included in the review. They involve a total of 366 patients (424 joints). The heterogeneity of diagnoses and treatment protocols of the studies reviewed makes it difficult to compare the results.

Conclusions:

According to this review, AC by itself is sufficient to obtain good results in the treatment of TMJ disorders. The use of intra-articular CS associated with AC does not provide benefits compared to performing AC alone and results in similar findings to other terapeutic drugs.

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