Recurrent aphthous ulceration: an epidemiological study of etiological factors, treatment and differential diagnosis

BACKGROUND

Recurrent aphthous ulcerations are common benign ulcerated lesions on the mouth, whose etiology is poorly understood, with controversial treatment and difficult to control in clinical practice.

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate the cases of recurrent aphthous ulcerations with a focus on treatment, diagnosis and etiology.

METHODS

This is a retrospective study of the cases of the Oral Diagnosis service of the Rio Grande do Norte Federal University in Natal/RN. Data such as sex, age, race, location, smoking habits, types of treatment, relapsing episodes, laboratory test results and clinical characteristics were collected. The associations between the variables were analyzed using the Pearson Chi-square test (p <0.05).

RESULTS

A total of 4895 patients were seen in the service over a period of 11 years. Of these, 161 (3.3%) had complaints of oral aphthous ulcerations, of which 76 (47.2%) were diagnosed as suffering from recurrent aphthous ulcerations and 68 (42.2%) with clinical information necessary for evaluation. The tongue was the most affected anatomical region, with 27 individuals (39.7%), followed by the buccal mucosa, with 22 cases (32.3%).

STUDY LIMITATIONS

Retrospective study with data from medical records.

CONCLUSION

Dental surgeons, dermatologists and otorhinolaryngologists are the main responsible for the first contact with patients with this disease and should be attentive to the clinical aspects and treat each patient in an individualized way, since the therapy is palliative, its diagnosis is by exclusion and its etiology is unknown.

Comparison of Behcet's disease and recurrent aphthous ulcer according to characteristics of gastrointestinal symptoms

Behcet's disease (BD) is a multisystemic chronic inflammatory disease. It is characterized by recurrent oral and genital ulcers, uveitis, skin lesions and other manifestations, including neurologic, vascular, joint, and gastrointestinal ulcers of variable severity. Recurrent aphthous ulcer (RAU) represents a very common, but poorly understood, mucosal disorder. If a patient of RAU without any other typical symptoms of BD has gastrointestinal symptoms, it is difficult to distinguish this RAU from true BD with gastrointestinal involvement. Because pathognomonic clinical features and tools are absent, the differential diagnosis of these two diseases relies on the characteristic clinical features and the judgement of an experienced physician. Sixty-five out of a total 960 RAU patients and forty-four of 556 BD patients with gastrointestinal symptoms between January 1996 and December 2003 participated in this study. All were evaluated with esophagogastroduodenoscopy and colonoscopy. Clinical, endoscopic and histopathologic findings were analyzed and ELISA tests were conducted to detect serum levels of ASCA and pANCA. No significant difference was found between the two groups. Differential diagnosis between RAU with gastrointestinal symptoms and BD with gastrointestinal involvement requires further prospective, large-scale study.