RACE AND GENDER AS TMD RISK-FACTORS IN CHILDREN

The aim of this study was to record the prevalence in preschool childr en of oral/facial pain symptoms of clinical interest in the diagnoses of temporomandibular disorders (TMD) and to analyze the association wi th the race and gender factors. Children, 525 4-6 year olds, mean age 5.1 +/- 0.65 (SD), 326 Caucasian and 199 African American, from a pres chool and kindergarten program in a low income industrial area, who pa rticipated in a voluntary oral health examination, were examined. Comp arisons were made using Chi-Square test. An alpha-level of 5% was chos en, and the effect of making multiple comparisons was compensated for by Bonferroni correction. No gender differences were found, but racial differences were observed regarding six of the 10 variables. Twenty-f ive percent of the children had recurrent (at least one to two times p er week) headache. Thirteen percent had recurrent earache, African-Ame rican children more often than Caucasian children (p similar to 0.0038 ). Thirteen percent had recurrent temporomandibular joint (TMJ) pain, and 11% had recurrent neck pain. Pain or tiredness in the jaws during chewing was reported by 29% of the children, more often by African-Ame rican than by Caucasian (p < 0.00001). Pain at jaw opening occurred in 13% of the children, more often in the African-American than in the C aucasian children (p similar to 0.00004). Palpation pain was found in the posterior TMJ area in 28%, in the lateral TMJ area in 22%, in the masseter area in 19%, in the anterior temporalis area in 15% and was f ound more often in all of those regions in the African-American than i n the Caucasian children (p similar to 0.00001), except for the tempor alis area. In conclusion, this study showed that mild, but distinct, T MD-related oral/facial pain symptoms occur already by ages 4-6 with si gnificant differences in distribution observed between the African-Ame rican and the Caucasian races. While gender seems to play a negligible role in this age group, this does not necessarily mean that race is a causative factor. The pain symptoms may be caused by other factors wi th different distribution in the two racial subgroups.