INTERNAT. CONSORTIUM FOR RESEARCH ON TMJ DISORDERS

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This is an application in response to RFA DE-99-002-International Collaborative Oral Health Research Planning Grant. It is a two-year planning project which has its long term goal the conduct of multi-national research into the etiology, prevention, and management of temporomandibular disorders. An international consortium for this purpose is proposed, housed at the University of Washington, which has been the center for developing standardized examination and diagnostic approaches, including the Research Diagnostic Criteria for TMD (RDC/TMD), all of which will be available to the consortium and which will constitute a central component of the proposed planning effort. The specific aims of this two-year planning grant are the following: 1) to establish and leave in place at the end of the planning process a working consortium of multi-national clinical centers having the capability to conduct programmatic, interdisciplinary research on an international level into the etiology, prevention, and management of TMD; 2) to establish, prior to the end of the planning phase, reliable RDC/TMD examiners at each clinical center of the consortium, and by consensus of the consortium make modifications to the RDC/TMD; 3) use available electronic and networking technology to establish electronic data collection and transmission capabilities at consortium sites for communicating and for management of scientific data and literature databases; and 4) to submit for funding at least two multi-national, interdisciplinary research proposals by the end of the planning phase. A pilot electronic network, serving as prototypical for proposed electronic communications and networking aims, allowed consortium members to be surveyed, provide feedback, receive and return appropriate forms, etc., in timely fashion for preparation of this grant application. The participating individuals and institutions: 1) include some of the most pre-eminent workers in the field; 2) use the RDC/TMD in their respective native languages; 3) are eager to form such a consortium that includes orofacial pain and TMD clinic directors at the Universities of Sydney, Australia; Helsinki, Finland; Halle-Leipsig, Germany; Tel Aviv, Israel; Singapore, Singapore; Oral Rehabilitation Center, Link'ping, Sweden; and in the United States, the consortium participants include the universities of SUNY at Buffalo, Michigan, Minnesota, and Washington. A future goal will be to extend the consortium's domain to include all acute and chronic dental and orofacial pain conditions of significance to dentistry.