[Bioregulation therapy in the treatment of age-related osteoarthropathy of the temporomandibular joint.]

Serikov AA, Soldatova LN, Iordanishvili AK, Pavlova SG · Advances in Gerontology (Uspekhi Gerontologii)

Bone density at the condylar head, measured on cone-beam CT in Hounsfield units, was significantly lower in patients than in healthy men and the gap widened with age: 157 units in the youngest band, 266 in the middle and 297 in the oldest (p≤0.05). The joint dysfunction index before treatment was 7, 9 and 13 points across those bands, a difference the paper reports only as a trend at p≤0.10. After the 60-day course the index read 4, 6 and 9 points, which is the shift from severe to moderate the paper claims for the oldest group.

Population

104 male patients aged 35 to 74 with functional pathology of the temporomandibular joint — 40 aged 35–44, 36 aged 45–59 and 28 aged 60–74 — against 16 healthy men split across the same age bands

Intervention

Cartalax by mouth, two capsules twice a day for 60 days, inside complex treatment

Comparator

Healthy subjects for the bone-density comparison; for the treatment itself, each patient's own before-and-after, with no untreated patient arm

Limitations

The agent is Cartalax, so this is a human study of the AED tripeptide rather than of a cartilage extract. The before-and-after change has no untreated comparison and no significance test reported, the healthy group serving only as a density reference, and the index is a three-item clinical score of mouth opening, jaw deviation and joint noise. The English title PubMed carries says 'in the treatment of' where the Russian title says 'in the prevention of'; what was done is treatment of existing pathology. Russian-language journal tied to the originating institute.