Čes. slov. farm. 2013, 62(1):12-18

Oral mucosa and therapy of recurrent aphthous stomatitis

Hana Landová¹, Zdeněk Daněk², Jan Gajdziok^1,*, David Vetchý¹, Jan Štembírek³

¹ Department of Pharmaceutics, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Veterinary and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Brno, Czech Republic

² Clinic of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, University Hospital Brno, Czech Republic

³ Department of Maxillo-Facial surgery, University hospital Ostrava, Czech Republic

Oral mucosa is one of the specific surfaces of the human body, which is permanently exposed to external factors related with food intake, breathing and speaking processes, which can lead to the onset of some problems. Disorders of the oral mucosa are a group of diseases, affecting, in the course of life, the majority of the population. Many of the oral mucosa ailments are manifested by lesions. Recurrent aphthous stomatitis (RAS) is the most common of these diseases. Despite much clinical and research attention, its causes remain poorly understood and treatment is only symptomatic. RAS is reported to affect up to 25% of the population worldwide. Topical or systemic therapy (corticosteroids, antiseptics, anti-inflamatory drugs, immunomodulating agents, etc.) can be used for treatment of RAS-associated symptoms. In general, topical therapy should be preferred due to the smaller drug load of the organism. In both cases, the active substance has to be in suitable dosage form. Recently, besides the conventional ways of application (rinses), the main disadvantage of which is the short time of resistance in the oral cavity, mucoadhesive dosage forms are used. The aim of this article is to give a theoretical overview of the oral mucosa topic and its most frequent disease - recurrent aphthous stomatitis in terms of various types of the disease classification, diagnosis and therapy, and in terms of the usage of various types of active substances and medical forms.

Keywords: oral mucosa; recurrent aphthous stomatitis; therapy; mucoadhesive dosage forms

Grants and funding:

This article was completed with support of a Ministry of Health of Czech Republic research project NT11396 and IGA VFU Brno, Czech Republic, research project No. 78/2012/FaF.

Received: November 27, 2012; Accepted: December 12, 2012; Published: January 1, 2013  Show citation