Current Topical Medication in Temporomandibular Joint Pain: A Review of Literature

In comparison with oral and systemic temporomandibular joint (TMJ) medications, topical analgesics are the safest, still effective, pharmacological agents that are being used to treat temporomandibular disorders (TMDs). To select the appropriate topical agents for the treatment of various TMDs, their active ingredients and mechanisms of action should be well-understood. As for oral or systemic pharmacotherapeutics, topical analgesics can be used in combination with alternative treatments for TMDs.This review focuses on the current topical agents used in TMDs. An advanced search of publications from 2000 to 2016 was made in ScienceDirect, PubMed, Medline, and Google Scholar databases. Only English‑language articles were included in our study.