Topical tretinoin treatment for burning mouth syndrome: a pilot study

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.

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.

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.

Topical tretinoin exhibits potential efficacy in patients with treatment resistant burning mouth syndrome and may also be used as a primary treatment modality.