Is Pharmacotherapy of Psychiatric Disorders Effective on Burning Mouth Syndrome?

Introduction: burning mouth syndrome (B.M.S) is burning sensation in oral mucosa, which has no pathologic lesion nor laboratory findings. Studies have shown that psychiatric disorders have a significant role in prevalence and severity of B.M.S. There is not any documented and reliable treatment for this syndrome, but psychiatric therapy can be the main way to cure.

"Objectives:" The purpose of this study is evaluation of responsive rate of B.M.S. to psychiatric pharmacotherapy.

"Methods:" 80 patients suffering from B.M.S. had been referred to the department of oral medicine of Mashhad dental school from Oct 2004 to Dec 2005. 20 of them, who had the criteria to enter our study, had been visited by psychiatrist. After determination of their psychiatric disorder, we started treatment. They were revisited two weeks later and then followed up every month up to 6 month. Burning was evaluated at first visit and every month during follow-up, by the scale of V.A.S. Patients had been evaluated by SCL-90-TR, PSS, BDI, STI & Holms-Rahe tests. Finally the correlation between improvement of burning and psychiatric disorder was determined statistically with Kolmogorove-Smirnov analysis and Spearman coefficient of correlation.

"Results:" Distribution frequency of burning at the first visit and psychiatric disorder weren't normal; but anxiety, depression, stress, improvement of psychiatric disorder, kind of stressor and the most burning site had normal distribution frequency. There was statistically significant correlation between improvement of psychiatric disorder and improvement of burning such as between kind of stressor and the item.

Finally it was obvious that decreasing stressors, leads to improvement of psychiatric disorders and as a result improvement of B.M.S.

"Conclusion:" This study says that mouth burning in B.M.S. patients will improve or disappear with treatment of their psychiatric disorders.