Abstract
Burning mouth syndrome was diagnosed as a burning sensation or pain in the oral region unaccompanied by clinical signs. Most of the patients were postmenopausal women and a close relationship between burning mouth syndrome and aging has been proposed. However there are a limited number of studies from this point of view.
In this study, we examined 40 female patients with burning mouth syndrome at the Department of Oral Surgery, Nagoya University School of Medicine. Accompanying systemic diseases, medications, allergy, sites of pain, blood analysis, volume of unstimulated whole saliva, psychological test, subtyping and efficacy were evaluated with reference to aging. The subjects were divided into three subgroups depending on age, 42-56 years old (climacteric group), 57-64 years old (intermediate group) and over 65 years old (aged group).
Typical features were observed both in the climacteric and aged subgroups . In climacteric period, the patients suffered from a small number of accompanying systemic diseases and medication, had no remarkable xerostomia and presented normal blood data except for high blood cholesterol. From the CMI test, most of the patients in the climacteric period were distributed in class I or II which were considered as almost normal . On the other hand, aged patients suffered from many accompanying systemic diseases with medication, had mental disturbances which were revealed with CMI test, and presented hyposalivation . In aged patients, these factors may contribute to the etiology of the BMS.
It has thus been comfirmed that the aging and related changes could play an important role in the etiology of burning mouth syndrome both in the climacteric period and in the elderly.
