AbstractCombinations of the symptoms and signs of the mandibular pain dysfunction syndrome (MDS) provoked by movements of the mandible are complex and patients are treated as a homogeneous group. The process of prognostic stratification applied to an inception cohort of 169 MDS patients, separated groups of patients according to affected movements of the mandible associated with similar outcomes of treatments. From the data, two staging systems for the dysfunction were derived and evaluated. It is suggested that further analyses of more data would distinguish groups of patients with comparable prognoses enabling universal and valid comparisons of treatment of the dysfunction to be made.