2021 Volume 67 Issue 7 Pages 422-432
Oral dysesthesia is associated with a variety of abnormalities in the oral cavity, however the pathogenesis of the disease remains largely unknown. In order to help clarify this, we retrospectively investigated the characteristics and treatment effects in 51 oral dysesthesia patients who visited our department from 2011 to 2018. The investigation items were age, gender ratio, route of consultation, duration of symptoms, nature of abnormal sensations, systemic diseases, and treatment effects. The average age of the patients was 63 years (range of 20 to 86 years), and women accounted for 78%. The patient referral rate was 69%, and the highest number of referrals was from dental practitioners. The median duration of symptoms was 12 months (range of 1 to 360 months). More than half of the patients were aware of abnormalities in the entire oral cavity. There were 41 patients with systemic diseases, 6 patients had a history of reflux esophagitis, and 13 patients had some kind of psycho-neurologic disease. There were 13 cases of psychiatric neurological disorders; depression was the most common (8 cases). Many of the patients were elderly women, and the treatment methods used in our department were mainly brief psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy. Traditional Chinese medicine (kampo) was used in many cases, and many kinds of drugs such as anxiolytics were also used. The improvement rate was significantly higher in patients treated with Hangekobokuto than in those not treated (p = 0.04). However, the effect of the treatment was refractory in 31% (16/51) of cases. The effect of treatment was examined in terms of gender, age and disease duration. The improvement rate was compared between the two groups at the median of the disease duration and age. Although there was a tendency for men to have a lower rate of improvement than women, no statistically significant differences were found, including for the other two items. Comparison between the improved group and unimproved group using the Mann-Whitney U test for the three items of mean treatment period, disease duration, and age, showed a significant difference in the mean treatment period (p = 0.003).
