Pharmacological treatment of burning mouth syndrome: A review and update

Burning mouth syndrome (BMS) is defined as a burning sensation in the tongue or in any other region of the oral mucosa, in the absence of specific oral lesions. The present study reviews the pharmacological treatments used in the last 10 years to reduce the symptoms of BMS, and assesses the efficacy and safety of pharmacological interventions destined to alleviate the symptoms of BMS. To this effect, searches were made in the following databases: Micromedex, Cochrane Database and PubMed, crossing the following key words: drug, treatment, clinical trial, pain management, and burning mouth syndrome. The searches were limited to articles published in the last 10 years in English or Spanish, and involving human subjects. The searches were conducted in November 2006. The literature contains clinical studies in which BMS has been treated with drugs belonging to different pharmacological groups: antidepressants, antipsychotics, antiepileptic drugs, analgesics and mucosal protectors, among others. Although effective therapies have been identified in concrete cases, a treatment modality offering efficacy in most cases of BMS remains to be established. It is essential to gain further insight to the physiopathological mechanisms of BMS, and to establish differential diagnostic criteria to develop drugs with improved efficacy and safety profiles in the treatment of BMS.