Topical tretinoin treatment for burning mouth syndrome: a pilot study.

OBJECTIVES: Burning mouth syndrome is an intraoral chronic pain condition characterized by a moderate to severe sensation of burning from the oral mucosa. No clinical signs are found and there is no efficient treatment. METHOD AND MATERIALS: This pilot study included 10 women that were resistant to other previous treatments or noncompliant to systemic medications. Patients were asked to apply tretinoin gel 0.05% on their tongues twice daily for 14 days. Treatment effectiveness was assessed by completing a pre-study psychologic questionnaire and recording a daily wellbeing and pain log. RESULTS: Significant pain-score decrease in 50% of the patients (delta numerical rating score -3.15 +/- 3.02, P value = .005) was recorded. This finding was in concordance with the verbal statements including major quality-of-life improvement (P value = .05), without any treatment positive or negative predictive factors. CONCLUSIONS: Topical tretinoin exhibits potential efficacy in patients with treatment resistant burning mouth syndrome and may also be used as a primary treatment modality.