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Primary burning mouth syndrome is a term used for chronic oral mucosal pain with no identifiable organic cause. The aim of the study was to evaluate the usefulness of a psychiatric intervention for treating burning mouth syndrome based on a joint consultation with a psychiatrist and a dermatologist. The study was proposed to all patients who visited this consultation group between 2001 and 2017 for the treatment of primary burning mouth syndrome. The patients answered a questionnaire that was administered via mail. Of the 57 patients diagnosed with primary burning mouth syndrome, 38 were included. Seven patients (18.4%) no longer had pain; 8 (21.1%) estimated that the pain had decreased by greater than 50%; 11 (28.9%) estimated the decrease at between 30 and 50%, and 12 (31.6%) estimated a less than 30% decrease. Only 14 patients (36.8%) remained under treatment with antidepressants, as compared to 63.2% before the psychiatric intervention. This psychiatric intervention could be considered a valuable tool in the global burning mouth syndrome treatment strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Primary Sjögren's syndrome (pSS) is a frequent autoimmune systemic disease, clinically characterized by eyes and mouth dryness in all patients, salivary gland swelling or extraglandular systemic manifestations in half of the patients, and development of lymphoma in 5 to 10 % of the patients. However, patients presenting with sicca symptoms or salivary gland swelling may have a variety of conditions that may require very different investigations, treatments, or follow-up. Eye and/or mouth dryness is a frequent complaint in clinical setting, and its frequency increases with age. When evaluating a patient with suspected pSS, the first step is to rule out its differential diagnoses, before looking for positive arguments for the disease. Knowledge of normal and abnormal lachrymal and salivary gland physiology allows the clinician to prescribe the most adapted procedures for evaluating their function and structure. New tests have been developed in recent years for evaluating these patients, notably new ocular surface staining scores or salivary gland ultrasonography. We describe the different diagnoses performed in our monocentric cohort of 240 patients with suspected pSS. The most frequent diagnoses are pSS, other systemic autoimmune diseases, idiopathic sicca syndrome and drug-induced sicca syndrome. However, other diseases are important to rule out due to their specific management, such as sarcoidosis, granulomatosis with polyangeitis, IgG4-related disease, chronic hepatitis C virus or human immunodeficiency virus infections, graft-versus-host disease, and head and neck radiation therapy. At the light of these data, we propose a core of minimal investigations to be performed when evaluating a patient with suspected pSS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Patients with burning mouth syndrome (BMS) are frequently treated with antidepressants. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are increasingly used. Nonetheless, few studies have examined the effects of SSRIs in BMS. Objective: We performed a retrospective study to confirm the need for a prospective study on this topic in the future. Patients and Methods: 51 patients suffering from primary BMS were included in this study. Results: The frequency of side effects due to SSRIs was low, with mainly digestive side effects. Treatment with SSRIs was more efficient in patients reporting a psychogenic origin for their symptoms. Antidepressants were more frequently stopped when patients did not declare such an origin. Conclusions: SSRIs appear to be effective and well tolerated. Declaring a psychogenic component may be considered as a potentiating or predictive factor for the efficacy of treatment with SSRIs. These results should be confirmed by a prospective randomised study. © 2014 S. Karger AG, Basel [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychogenic excoriations are also called neurotic exco-riations, dermatillomania or skin picking syndrome. We proposed diagnostic criteria and then performed a study of the psychiatric profiles of outpatients with psychoge-nic excoriations and the circumstances around the crea-tion of these excoriations. Although the results must be interpreted with caution because the study was perfor-med with only 10 patients, interesting data is provided about the onset of psychogenic excoriations, the beha-viour of picking, and comorbidity. Common or specific characteristics were identified according to type of case. The majority of patients associated first excoriations with personal problems. Four patients reported abuse in childhood or adolescence. This study confirms that skin picking is an impulsive reaction and does not belong to the obsessive-compulsive disorders: impulsivity is defi-ned by ineffective or failing control resulting in uninhi-bited behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]