Content area
Full text
Received Sep 13, 2017; Accepted Feb 8, 2018
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
1. Introduction
The aphtha is a lesion of the oral mucous tissue characterized by the presence of a very painful ulcer. It can be found alone or it can occur in groups in several different places in the oral cavity. At the beginning it gives the patient a feeling of itchiness or a burning sensation in the mouth where a lesion will appear in one or two days. The aphtous ulcer has an oval form and has a diameter from a minimum of 3 to 4 mms to a maximum of 10 to 15 mms. Its floor color is a white or yellow, and around it is an area which is extremely hyperemic due to the inflammation taking place which can cause submandibular lymph nodes swelling and pain. The pain can extend to the dental arch and is often confused with toothache. As days pass, a whitey-grey spot is formed which consists of fibrin deposits [1, 2].
Aphthae affect from 5 to 25% of the population according to different studies and various methodologies. This disorder is more frequently found in women and in the higher social classes [3–5]. The region of the oral cavity that is most often affected is the mucosa of the lower lip, the tongue, the retromolar trigone on the buccal gums, the palate, the throat, and the larynx [1–5].
The length of the illness varies from patient to patient. It can vary between 7 and 15 days when there are single aphthae, but the illness can go on for up to a month if there are multiple aphthae. In the most serious cases a scar can form where the lesion was, but this tends to disappear in time. The aphthae are not contagious, and a differential diagnosis has to be made considering simple herpes, other autoimmune diseases such as Vulgaris Pemphigus, viral diseases, candidiasis, ACLE (acute cutaneous lupus erythematosus), Allergic Contact Dermatitis, Cancers of the Oral Mucosa, Cicatricial Pemphigoid, Contact Stomatitis, Mucosae Aspects of Behcet’s Disease, Oral Mucosae Manifestations of Gastrointestinal Disease, Oral Mucosae Manifestations...