• The korean journal of orthodontics
• /
• v.44 no.5
• /
• pp.263-267
• /
• 2014

Objective: To three-dimensionally elucidate the effects of occlusal hypofunction on the periodontal ligament and alveolar bone proper of rat molars by micro-computed tomography (micro-CT). Methods: Occlusal function in the molar area was restricted by attaching an anterior bite plate on the maxillary incisors and a metal cap on the mandibular incisors of 5-week-old male Wistar rats for 1 week. The periodontal ligament space and alveolar bone proper around roots of the mandibular first molar were assessed by histology and micro-CT. Results: The periodontal ligament space was narrower and the alveolar bone proper was sparser and less continuous in the hypofunction group than in the control group. Further, both the volume of the periodontal ligament and the volumetric ratio of the alveolar bone proper to the total tissue in the region of interest were significantly lower in the hypofunction group (p < 0.05). Conclusions: Occlusal hypofunction induces atrophic changes in the periodontal ligament and alveolar bone proper of rat molars.

• Journal of Oral Medicine and Pain
• /
• v.24 no.4
• /
• pp.467-477
• /
• 1999

Personality characteristics of orofacial pain patients was analyzed psychologically by means of the SCL-90-R. 36 TMD patients, 20 burning mouth syndrome(BMS) patients, 31 trigeminal neuralgia(TN) patients, 20 control I and 28 control II were subjected at Orofacial pain clinic, Department of Oral Medicine and Health Promotion Center, Pusan National University Hospital during the period from 1998 to 1999. The obtained results were as follows: 1. Mean values of T-scores on 9 basic scales in all the groups were within normal range. 2. The T-scores of SOM, O-C, ANX and HOS in TMD patient group were significantly higher than those in control I group, but there was no significant difference in all scales between TMD patient group and control II group. 3. The T-scores of SOM in BMS patient group was significantly higher than those in control I group, but there was no significant difference in all scales between BMS patient group and control II group. 4. The T-scores of SOM in TN patient group was significantly higher than those in control II group. 5. As compared with present and absent of the history of systemic diseases, there was no significant difference of the scales in TMD, BMS and TN patient groups but the T-scores of the patient groups with the history of systemic diseases tended to higher than those of the patient group without the history of systemic diseases. 6. As compared with acute and chronic groups, the T-scores of O-C, I-S, PAR, PSY in chronic BMS patient group were significantly higher than those in acute BMS patient.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
• /
• v.15 no.9
• /
• pp.5594-5601
• /
• 2014

The aim of this study was to evaluate the analgesic effects of Samultang by measuring the anti-inflammatory and antioxidative activities in formalin-induced orofacial pain. The anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidative effects were measured by western blot analysis for p38 MAPK(Mitogen-activated protein kinases), iNOS(induceble nitric oxide synthase) and NOX4(nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate4) in a rat's brain and medulla oblongata. Samultang significantly attenuated the increased formalin-induced nociceptive response and inhibited the p38 MAPK and iNOS that led to inflammatory pain. In addition, this study indicated that Samultang possess antioxidative effects through the blockade of NOX4. These findings suggest that Samultang plays an important role in the peripheral processing of inflammatory pain in the orofacial area.

• Journal of Oral Medicine and Pain
• /
• v.36 no.4
• /
• pp.253-259
• /
• 2011

Numb chin syndrome, is a rare neuropathy, characterized by facial and oral numbness restricted to the distribution of the mental nerve. Even though this neuropathy is uncommon, but this still has an important clinical meaning because it can be related with a malignancy. Because orofacial symptoms can even present the first clinical feature of a malignancy, dentists should pay careful attention to their meaning and importance to detect the malignant tumor early. Moreover, patients who present with a sudden numbness on chin should be investigated for the undiagnosed malignancy. In this report, we described a patient with stabbing orofacial pain and numbness of chin who was diagnosed with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma and placed the importance on the diagnosis of NCS.

• International Journal of Oral Biology
• /
• v.41 no.4
• /
• pp.191-197
• /
• 2016

The present study was to evaluate effects of vitamin E on intravenous administration of lidocaine-induced antinociception. Experiments were carried out using male Sprague-Dawley rats. Orofacial formalin-induced nociceptive behavioral responses were used as the orofacial animal pain model. Subcutaneous injection of formalin produced significant nociceptive scratching behavior. Intraperitoneal injection of 5 and 10 mg/kg of lidocaine attenuated formalin-induced nociceptive behavior in the 2nd phase, compared to the vehicle-treated group. Intraperitoneal injection of 1 g/kg of vitamin E also attenuated the formalin-induced nociceptive behavior in the 2nd phase, compared to the vehicle-treated group. However, low dose of vitamin E (0.5 g/kg) did not affect the nociceptive behavioral responses produced by subcutaneous injection of formalin. The present study also investigated effects of intraperitoneal injection of both vitamin E and lidocaine on orofacial formalin-induced behavioral responses. Vehicle treatment affected neither formalin-induced behavioral responses nor lidocaine-induced antinociceptive effects. However, intraperitoneal injection of 0.5 g/kg of vitamin E enhanced the lidocaine-induced antinociceptive effects in the 2nd phase compared to the vehicle-treated group. Intraperitoneal injection of naloxone, an opioid receptor antagonist, did not affect antinociception produced by intraperitoneal injections of both vitamin E and lidocaine. These results suggest that treatment with vitamin E enhances the systemic treatment with lidocaine-induced antinociception and reduces side effects when systemically treated with lidocaine. Therefore, the combined treatment with vitamin E and lidocaine is a potential therapeutic for chronic orofacial pain.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
• /
• v.17 no.4
• /
• pp.1785-1787
• /
• 2016

Granular cell tumor (GCT) of the oral cavity is a benign lesion. Half of oral GCTs demonstrate pseudocarcinomatous hyperplasia (PCH) of the mucosa which can mimic invasive islands of oral squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). Such similarity can be confusing when diagnosing or evaluating the two conditions, potentially leading to misdiagnosis or misclassification. Indeed, several misdiagnosed cases of oral GCT have been reported in the literature as OSCC or malignant oral GCT that resulted in unnecessary aggressive treatment for the affected patients. The aim of this study was to investigate if the cytokeratin pattern of the PCH can help in differentiating GCT from oral SCC. To distinguish between these two entities, we examined 12 patient specimens of oral GCT-PCH and oral SCC histologically and via immunohistochemistry (IHC) for CK13, CK17 and P75. The results suggest that the cytokeratin profile of PCH is similar to that of oral SCC. Therefore, consideration of IHC findings for epithelial markers alone may lead to erroneous diagnosis; thus, the presence of the granular tumor underneath the PCH and its immunopositivity for P75 or other neural definition markers can be essential to identify the underlying tumor and exclude oral SCC. Finally we recommend more studies on the molecular biology of PCH to understand how it can mimic oral SCC histologically without harboring its malignant phenotype clinically, which could have significant translational potential for understanding invasive oral SCC.

• Journal of Oral Medicine and Pain
• /
• v.42 no.4
• /
• pp.116-124
• /
• 2017

Purpose: Burning mouth syndrome (BMS) is a disabling pain that mostly occurs in elderly women, but rarely in men. It is characterized by an unremitting oral burning sensation and pain without detectable oral mucosal changes. We investigated the clinical and hematologic features of middle-aged men with BMS, and compared the results to those of men with oral mucositis. Methods: Five men with BMS ($48.60{\pm}6.19years$) and five age-matched controls with oral mucositis ($49.80{\pm}15.26years$) underwent clinical and psychological evaluations and blood tests. Psychological status was evaluated using the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised. Cortisol, estradiol, progesterone, testosterone, follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), luteinizing hormone (LH), adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), and antidiuretic hormone (ADH) levels and erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) were determined from the blood samples. Results: ADH level was significantly lower in men with BMS than in the controls. ADH levels correlated with testosterone (p<0.01), and ACTH levels strongly correlated with ESR (p<0.05). Progesterone level positively correlated with FSH and LH levels. Pain intensity on a visual analogue scale correlated with estradiol level only in men with BMS. Among psychological factors, the obsessive-compulsive disorder, interpersonal-sensitivity, and anxiety scores were higher in men with BMS than in the controls (p<0.05). However, no correlations were observed between the psychological and hematologic factors in both groups. The BMS symptoms presented only on the tongue, with the lateral border being the most prevalent area. Conclusions: Men with BMS may experience dysregulated endocrinologic or psychoneuroendocrinologic interactions, which might affect oral BMS symptoms, aggravating the severity of the burning sensation.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
• /
• v.13 no.5
• /
• pp.379-383
• /
• 2009

Nitric oxide (NO), a diffusible gas, is produced in the central nervous system, including the spinal cord dorsal horn and the trigeminal nucleus, the first central areas processing nociceptive information from periphery. In the spinal cord, it has been demonstrated that NO acts as pronociceptive or antinociceptive mediators, apparently in a concentration-dependent manner. However, the central role of NO in the trigeminal nucleus remains uncertain in support of processing the orofacial nociception. Thus, we here investigated the central role of NO in formalin (3%)-induced orofacial pain in rats by administering membrane-permeable or -impermeable inhibitors, relating to the NO signaling pathways, into intracisternal space. The intracisternal pretreatments with the NO synthase inhibitor L-NAME, the NO-sensitive guanylate cyclase inhibitor ODQ, and the protein kinase C inhibitor GF109203X, all of which are permeable to the cell membrane, significantly reduced the formalin-induced pain, whereas the membrane-impermeable NO scavenger PTIO significantly enhanced it, compared to vehicle controls. These data suggest that an overall effect of NO production in the trigeminal nucleus is pronociceptive, but NO extracellularly diffused out of its producing neurons would have an antinociceptive action.

• Journal of Oral Medicine and Pain
• /
• v.32 no.2
• /
• pp.201-210
• /
• 2007

Many diseases occur by stress or effect of stress. The basis for using hormones in research of stress is the observation that most systems in the body show changes during stress and that hormonal markers in these changes are related with stress. Conceptually, the central role of sympathetic nervous system(SNS) and hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal(HPA) axis activity in stress provides copious justification for measuring hormonal changes. Catecholamines like epinephrine and norepinephrine, cortisol, testosterone and growth hormone and so on show sensitive reaction to stress. The major advantage of salivary sample to stress research is that its sampling technique can be performed in non-stressful conditions and without physical restraint and ethical problems. Because hormone levels in saliva is a good reflection of hormone levels in plasma, application of stress hormones in saliva is very useful for research of orofacial pain related with stress.

• Journal of Oral Medicine and Pain
• /
• v.37 no.3
• /
• pp.135-139
• /
• 2012

Hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia is a rare autosomal dorminant disease that features abnormal and fragile vascular dilations of terminal vessels in skin and mucous membranes, as well as arteriovenous malformations of internal organs, particularly lungs, brain, and liver. Often patients have not been diagnosed with HHT for a long time, and undiagnosed HHT patients unnecessarily develop serious complications such as severe life-threatening hemorrhage, stroke or brain abscess. Therefore, early detection and appropriate screening is very important. Early detection of HHT allows the appropriate screening for the presence of silent disease such as AVMs in the lungs, liver, or brain, and preventive treatment in the patient and their affected family members. Dentists should be familiar with HHT because the telangiectases on skin and oral mucosa are often the most dramatic and most easily identified component of HHT. Recently, we experienced a case of HHT. We present the case with a review of the literature.