Association Between Temporomandibular Joint Disorders and Salivary Cortisol Levels: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Context:

 Salivary cortisol could be a good marker for temporomandibular joint disorders. This article aimed to study the association between salivary cortisol and temporomandibular joint disorders (TMD).

 PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, and Embase were searched according to the PRISMA guidelines without restricting the publication start date until October 2022. Only case-control studies were included in the study. The critical appraisal checklist of the Joanna Briggs Institute was utilized to appraise the selected articles.

 Of 1173 articles found, 23 studies were eligible, and 18 were meta-analyzed. A total of 696 TMD patients and 785 controls were included. Meta-analysis showed that salivary cortisol was significantly higher in patients with TMD than the controls. Meta-regression showed that the difference in mean salivary cortisol decreased significantly between the two groups with increasing age.

 The salivary cortisol in patients with TMD is significantly higher than in the controls. As the heterogeneity among the studies was high, more studies are required to verify this association.