Background and aim of study: To evaluate the effect of primary diagnostic arthroscopic procedures on TMJ Synovitis when compared to secondary surgical arthroscopic findings and its impact on the final outcome of TMJ arthroscopy.

Materials and methods: 51 patients were selected from a total of 286 patients suffering from internal derangement (ID) of TMJ with different etiological factors; who required 2ry arthroscopic procedure starting from July 2007 to March 2011.

A total of 75 joints were subjected to first diagnostic arthroscopic TMJ lysis and lavage, followed by second therapeutic arthroscopic TMJ discopexy. Those procedures were done in Baptist hospital, Miami, Florida, USA.

This study was assessed through showing changes in the different grades of Retrodiscal Synovitis revealed in arthroscopic interventions and was correlate to the general outcome of those procedures in terms of improvement in the painless range of mandibular motion, pain on loading and functional jaw pain via visual analog scale.

Results of investigation: This study revealed that improvement of the Retrodiscal Synovitis was achieved in 52% of arthroscopic treated patients primarily. This improvement has lead to significant improvement of the general outcome of treatment as assessed clinically ( R = 0.623, P = 0.001). On the other hand, different etiological factors neither affected the changes in Synovitis nor the final outcome of treated patients.

Conclusion: This study concluded that the primary arthroscopic intervention has a positive effect on reducing the degree of Retrodiscal Synovitis, which indeed improve the final outcome of the second therapeutic arthroscopic discopexy procedure.

Conflict of interest: None declared.