Oral symptoms at menopause--the role of hormone replacement therapy

A questionnaire was used to investigate the prevalence of self-assessed sensations of painful mouth (PM) and dry mouth (DM) in menopause-aged women. Special attention was paid to the association of the use of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) with oral symptoms. Our hypothesis was that women using HRT have fewer oral symptoms than those who do not use HRT.

Patients were selected from among 50- to 58-year-old women attending a communal mammography screening program in Helsinki, Finland. Every fifth woman was offered a structured questionnaire.

Completed questionnaires were received from 3173 women (response rate, 65%). Of the total sample, 46.8% (n = 1486) used HRT. The occurrence of PM was 8.2% (n = 259) and DM, 19.9% (n = 631). Climacteric symptoms were reported by 24% (n = 761) of the total sample and by 19.2% (n = 285) of the HRT users. According to logistic regression analyses, climacteric symptoms were found to be predictive of PM (P =.000) and DM (P =.000). The use of HRT also increased the occurrence of PM (P =.03). However, as a single covariate in our statistical model, the use of HRT was not a predictor of PM. The use of HRT also did not correlate with the occurrence of DM.

The occurrence of PM and of DM seemed to be associated with climacteric symptoms in general, and the use of HRT did not prevent the oral symptoms studied.