Efficacy of oral nystatin treatment for patients with oral mucosal dysesthesia but without objective oral mucosal manifestations and necessity of culture test before oral nystatin treatment.

BACKGROUND/PURPOSE: Previous studies have shown that some of the patients with oral mucosal dysesthesia but without objective oral mucosal manifestations (so-called oral dysesthesia patients in this study) may have good responses to oral nystatin treatment. This study evaluated the efficacy of oral nystatin treatment for oral dysesthesia patients and the necessity of culture test before oral nystatin treatment.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The 147 oral dysesthesia patients were divided into 3 groups: culture (+) group (n = 29), culture (-) group (n = 34), and without culture test group (n = 84), and treated with oral nystatin. The pain improvement was evaluated by the reduction of numeric pain rating scale (NRS) and global perceived effects (GPE). We defined the GPE score ≥4 points as a great improvement.

RESULTS

We found that 44.8% of 29 patients in the culture (+) group, 47.1% of 34 patients in the culture (-) group, and 47.6% of 84 patients in the without culture test group showed a significant reduction in the NRS score and achieved a great improvement after oral nystatin treatment for 1-4 weeks. Moreover, 72.4% of our 29 patients with culture test achieved a great improvement within one week, and all the 29 patients achieved a great improvement within 4 weeks of oral nystatin treatment.

CONCLUSION

A portion of our oral dysesthesia patients are infected by and it is beneficial to our patients to use oral nystatin treatment before the culture test.