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Drug effects on salivary glands: dry mouth
1International Centres for Excellence in Dentistry and Department of Oral Medicine, Eastman Dental Institute for Oral Health Care Sciences, University of London, London, UK. c.scully@eastman.ucl.ac.uk
Objective:
To identify drugs associated with the complaint of dry mouth.
Materials And Methods:
MEDLINE was searched for papers 1980-2002 using keywords, oral, mouth, salivary, drugs, dry mouth and xerostomia, and relevant secondary references were hand-searched.
Results:
Evidence was forthcoming for a number of xerogenic drugs, especially antimuscarinic agents, some sympathomimetic agents, and agents affecting serotonin and noradrenaline uptake, as well as a miscellany of other drugs such as appetite suppressants, protease inhibitors and cytokines.
Conclusion:
Dry mouth has a variety of possible causes but drugs--especially those with anticholinergic activity against the M3 muscarinic receptor--are the most common cause of reduced salivation.