Researchers at the University of Maryland Dental School have embarked on a seven-year, $17 million study of 3,400 study subjects with the goal of identifying the cause and effect of temporomandibular joint and muscle disorders (TMJD) -- and potentially develop a cure, the university announced.
The Orofacial Pain: Prospective Evaluation and Risk Assessment (OPPERA) study is funded by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, part of the National Institutes of Health. It is being conducted at four sites: the University of Maryland Dental School and the dental schools at the universities of Buffalo, North Carolina, and Florida.
"The main purpose of our OPPERA study is to identify the precursors in a prospective way, thus allowing us to more formally determine cause and effect, rather than just associations," stated Joel Greenspan, Ph.D., a professor and chair of the Department of Neural and Pain Sciences at the Maryland dental school and one of the study's principle investigators, in a press release.
Very few studies have addressed the cause of the disorder in a prospective manner, and none of the size and comprehension of OPPERA, according to Greenspan. Almost all of the clinical literature studies on TMJD are either observations on TMJD patients or case-control studies.
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