Myofascial pain or Eagle´s syndrome? The importance of the differential diagnosis

Abstract

Elongated styloid process or Eagle syndrome and miofascial pain syndrome are part of craniomandibular disorders. Various clinical case reports found in the literature emphasize the abnormalities of the styloid complex associated to various symptoms, such as muscular pain, tender points, trigger points, which may make the diagnosis confusing or associate these symptoms to other pathologies. This way, it is important to obtain an exact diagnosis because of the confounding symptomatology. This article reports a case of miofascial pain in which the patient presented pain in the head and neck region with an elongated styloid process of about 78 mm (observed in a panoramic radiography). The final diagnosis was obtained through an investigative clinical examination associated to images.