JBR Journal of Interdisciplinary Medicine and Dental Science
Open Access

Review Article

Cell Therapies in the Treatment of Temporomandibular Osteoarthritis: A Systematic Review of the Literature

Ricardo de Souza Tesch^1*, Fernanda Jonas Fontes Finocchio¹ and Karla Menezes²

¹Faculty of Medicine of Petropolis, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

²Excellion Laboratory, Petropolis, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Corresponding Author:

Ricardo de Souza Tesch
Faculty of Medicine of Petropolis
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Tel: (21)2529-2008
E-mail: ricardot@compuland.com.br

Received date: May 27, 2014; Accepted date: July 31, 2014; Published date: August 7, 2014

Citation: De Souza Tesch R, Fontes Finocchio FJ, Menezes K (2014) Cell Therapies in the Treatment of Temporomandibular Osteoarthritis: A Systematic Review of the Literature. J Interdiscipl Med Dent Sci 2:136 doi:10.4172/2376-032X.1000136

Copyright: © 2014 De Souza Tesch, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Therapeutic strategies for the management of temporomandibular osteoarthritis ideally involve the improvement in pain and functional disability, as well as delay the progression and promote the repair of joint cartilage defects. Cell therapies have emerged as a new, minimally invasive therapeutic modality that allows for the use of autologous cell transplantation, and may involve adult undifferentiated mesenchymal stem/stromal cells (MSC) or differentiated cell lineage,like condrocytes.The aim of this study was to review the existing controlled clinical trials that evaluate the efficacy and safety of these different types of cell therapy in adult patients with temporomandibular joint(TMJ) osteoarthritis. The parameters used to search the literature and retrieve these studies, as well as the assessments
of eligibility criteria,have followed the recommendations of the PRISMA Statement. A highly sensitive search strategy was held in the Medline (1966-2013)and Central Register of Controlled Trials(1960-2013)databases. The latest search was carried out on Dec 27,2013. Different combinations of keywords were used, temporomandibular joint, temporomandibular disorders, craniomandibular dysfunction, stem cells, mesenchymal cells and autologous condrocytes, yielded 101 clinical trials. Most of these trials, however, were related to osteoarthitis of the knees. No clinical trials were conducted in patients with TMJ osteoarthritis. There is no evidence from randomized controlled trials to demonstrate the safety and effectiveness of different types of cellular therapies for the treatment of osteoarthritis of the TMJ. There is an urgent need to perform clinical trials in this area in order to benefit patients with advanced processes who are refractory to conservative or conventional minimally invasive therapeutic modalities.