Acupuncture therapeutic protocols for the management of temporomandibular disorders * Protocolos de acupuntura para o tratamento da disfunção temporomandibular

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: For most cases, temporomandibular disorders should be treated by a non-invasive, interdisciplinary and integrative process. In traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture is an excellent tool aiming at treating and healing this disease. This study was a critical literature review to observe the efficacy of traditional Chinese acupuncture to treat muscular temporomandibular disorders and to identify primary acupoints. CONTENTS: Pubmed, LILACS, Scielo and Cochrane databases were queried to identify scientific articles relevant for the study. Articles were selected from January 2000 to May 2013. A total of 125 articles were found and 21 were included. Acupuncture treatment alone or as additional therapy, or even compared to other techniques, was superior and effective to improve pain and function of patients with temporomandibular disorders and most commonly used acupoints were IG4, E6, E7 and F3. CONCLUSION: This study has shown that acupuncture is a technique recommended by national and international literature to treat muscular temporomandibular disorders, promoting pain relief and/or total intensity, improvement of joint movements and oral function and decrease of masticatory muscles hyperactivity.