Prevalence of oral lesions in inflammatory bowel disease.
OBJECTIVE
To obtain precise data on the prevalence of oral lesions in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).


METHODS
Oral lesions were carefully sought in a consecutive series of 198 Italian IBD outpatients, 77 with Crohn's disease (CD) and 121 with ulcerative colitis (UC); 89 subjects with functional intestinal motility disorders served as controls.


RESULTS
The oral lesions detected were angular cheilitis (in 7.8% of CD patients, 5% of UC patients, and 0% of controls (p < 0.05, patients vs controls), lichen (6.5, 5.8, and 3.3%, respectively, p = not significant), aphthous ulcers (5.2, 5.8, and 5.6%, respectively, p = not significant), candidiasis (5.2, 0.8, and 0%, respectively, p < 0.05, CD patients vs controls), benign tumors (5.2, 0, and 7.8%, respectively, p < 0.05, patients vs controls), leukoplakia (5.2, 11, and 3.3%, respectively, p = not significant), and, less frequently, glossitis and herpes labialis. No specific CD oral lesions were observed in this series. No correlation was found between clinical disease activity and frequency of oral lesions.


CONCLUSIONS
Aphthous ulcers are not common in IBD patients. Oral candidiasis is more frequent in CD than UC patients and controls.
Lisciandrano
D
D
Istituto di Scienze Mediche, Cattedra di Gastroenterologia, IRCCS Ospedale Maggiore, Italy.
Ranzi
T
T
Carrassi
A
A
Sardella
A
A
Campanini
M C
MC
Velio
P
P
Bianchi
P A
PA
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D015212:Inflammatory Bowel Diseases / Q000150:complications*; D007558:Italy / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009059:Mouth Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology; D015995:Prevalence