Is there an association between drugs and burning mouth syndrome? A case-control study.

Objective: The purpose of this case-control study was to compare the pharmacological anamnesis collected from a group of 150 burning mouth syndrome (BMS) patients with that of a control group of 150 patients matched for age and sex.

Materials And Methods: The patients' medical histories were reviewed, and data on drug therapy were collected. Drugs were classified on the basis of pharmacological effects; the classes were antihypertensives (i.e., ACE inhibitors/ARBs, calcium antagonists, diuretics and beta-blockers), antiaggregants, anticoagulants, antidiabetics, vitamin D integrators, bisphosphonates, psychotropics (i.e., anxiolytics and antidepressants), gastroprotectors, statins, thyroid hormone substitutes, corticosteroids and immunosuppressants.

Results: The BMS patients and the controls were matched for age (mean age: 69 years) and sex (128 females and 22 males). Antihypertensives, especially ACE inhibitors/ARBs (OR = 0.37, CI: 0.22-0.63, p = 0.0002) and beta-blockers (OR = 0.36, CI: 0.19-0.68 p = 002), revealed an inverse association with the presence of BMS, whereas anxiolytics (OR = 3.78, CI: 2.12-6.75 p < 0.0001), but neither antidepressants nor antipsychotics, were significantly associated with BMS. There were no correlations with other drug classes.

Conclusion: Our study highlighted that ACE inhibitors, ARBs and beta-blockers were in inverse relation to BMS and found that anxiolytics, but neither antidepressants nor antipsychotics, were linked to the presence of the syndrome.