PhD Defense: «Contributions to the imaging study of the affection of the Temporomandibular Joint in Juvenile Idiophatic Arthritis»

Between 8,000 and 10,000 children in Spain suffer from a rheumatologic disease. The most common childhood inflammatory rheumatic disease is the Juvenile Idiophatic Arthritis (JIA), which presents the involvement of the Temporomandibular Joint (TMJ) during its course.

The use of certain techniques of medical imagein TMJ affection in JIA patients is the main line of research of this work, focused to help in disease management detecting as soon as possible the inflamation of the TMJ and thus avoiding alteration of the cranial growth. This thesis also assess with new techniques of image the effect of an orthopedic treatment in children with JIA.

For the study of the TMJ, it has been employed normal X-Ray on TMJ view, the Computed Tomography (CT), the Ultrasound (US), and Magnetic Resonance (MRI). As a result of advances in computers and electronics technology, it is has been designed the cone beam Computed Tomography (CBCT) scanner and with sophisticated software tools (algorithms and statistical model-based reconstruction) it is possible work and resetting these values to improve the quality of the image.

X-Ray as quantitative and qualitative value registration is recognized by science as necessary value for measuring the degree or structural damage into the joints, in clinical studies, of any kind of arthritis. Therefore, is used as a tool to assess the diagnosis of a disease, the effect of any drug or treatment and the progression of the disease.