CT Images of a Severe TMJ Osteoarthritis and Differential Diagnosis with Other Joint Disorders

Table 1

Differential diagnosis among osteoarthritis (OA), rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and pain dysfunction syndrome (PDS) [3, 12, 13].

Findings	OA	RA	PDS
Pain	Localized	Diffuse	Irradiated
TMJ involvement	Symmetric or not	Symmetric	Symmetric or not
Subcutaneous nodes	Absent	Present (20%)	Absent
Type of hand swelling	Hard	Soft	Absent
Extra-articular findings	Absent	May be present	Absent
Morning stiffness	Absent	Present	Absent
Crepitation	Present	Rarely	Rarely
Clicking	Rarely	Absent	Present
Rheumatoid factor	Rarely present	Present	Absent
Erythrocyte sedimentation rate	Normal	Usually elevated	Normal
Synovial fluid	Normal	Inflammation	Normal
Radiographic findings	Erosive + exophytic; (asymmetric cartilage loss)	Erosive; (symmetric cartilage loss)	May be present