Posteroanterior cephalometric analysis of facial asymmetry in temporomandibular joint disorders

Facial asymmetry is commonly seen in patients with temporomandibular disorders. Temporomandibular disorders have an impact on facial asymmetry and the degree of facial asymmetry in turn has effects on temporomandibular disorders. The present study was conducted to estimate the degree of facial asymmetry in subjects with temporomandibular disorders. The study was done in 60 patients divided into 30 patients of 2 groups each. Group 1 comprised of patients with temporomandibular joint disorders and group 2 comprised of age and sex matched patients without temporomandibular joint disorders. The mean age of the patients in the study was 28 ± 8 years and 56.7% males and 43.3% females. Facial asymmetry was seen in 87.1% of patients with temporomandibular disorder and 84.8% of patients without tempromandibular disorder. Our results show that temporomandibular disorders are associated with significant changes in posteroanterior cephalometric measurements. Temporomandibular disorders account for greater amount of facial asymmetry, indicating that when analyzing tempromandibular disorders, evaluation of symmetry of face should also be done.