Usefulness of Treatment with Topical Antifungals in Burning Mouth Syndrome

Kim, Jae Hyung; Kim, Hyunjung; Jung, Kwang Yoon; Baek, Seung Kuk

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES
Burning mouth syndrome (BMS) is a poorly understood disease that is characterized by burning pain of the tongue without any identifiable organic disease. The pathophysiology of the disease has not been elucidated, and some kind of neuropathies are suspected to be involved. In this study, topical antifungals were prescribed to patients and the authors tried to evaluate its efficacy to BMS.
SUBJECTS AND METHOD
166 patients who had been diagnosed with burning mouth syndrome underwent topical antifungals treatment alone, and then follow-up at 2, 6, and 10 weeks of treatment. Effectiveness of treatment was evaluated by a 0-to-4 verbal rating scale. All enrolled patients had fungus culture in the oral cavity.
RESULTS
A total of 103 patients responded to treatment, accounting for 62% of the patients. Of those, a total of 63 patients were positive for the fungal culture, which was about 38% of the patients. There was a statistically significant difference between the initial pain assessment and the pain assessment after 10 weeks in all patients. The rate of response to treatment was not significantly different when classified according to patients' characteristics and comorbidities.
CONCLUSION
The result of the study suggests that topical antifungals are useful for BMS and that it can be used in addition to the systemic medication without the burden of side effects. Additional well-designed studies should be followed to prove the effectiveness of topical antifungals and research on pathophysiology of the disease.