Biomarkers in Burning Mouth Syndrome
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Biomarkers in Burning Mouth Syndrome
IRAS ID
275756
Contact name
Francis O'Neill
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Liverpool
Duration of Study in the UK
4 years, 0 months, 3 days
Research summary
Burning mouth syndrome (BMS) is a painful burning sensation which can affect the tongue, palate or lining of the cheeks. It can be difficult to treat with sufferers being affected long term, causing significant distress. Studies have shown this may be due to a reduced density of small nerve fibres, but these require tongue biopsy samples.
Recently we have shown that a new test called Corneal Confocal Microscopy (CCM), which looks at the surface of the eye that is innervated by small fibre nerves, can detect the same small nerve fibre changes in BMS patients. This test is not invasive and in other conditions has been shown to be as good as biopsy samples.
If CCM is to be used as an alternative to tongue biopsy in detecting/monitoring the amount of small nerve fibre change in BMS, then a direct comparison/calibration with CCM data and tongue biopsy data is necessary. The main aim of this project is to do just that. This is important as improvements in small fibre nerve deficits in other conditions have been demonstrated with several treatment strategies. The longer-term aim would be to utilise this method to better understand the cause of neuropathy in BMS and to monitor response of small nerve fibres to novel treatment strategies.
Additionally, we will look at changes in the density of a type of immune cell called Langerhans cells in these biopsies as an increase in Langerhans cell density was detected in our CCM study and this would help us confirm if these changes also occur in the oral mucosa.
Furthermore, as we are investigating this we also wish to take some blood and saliva samples to allow us to check for differences in patients genetics to see if there are any changes that might contribute to this condition.REC name
East Midlands - Nottingham 1 Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
21/EM/0285
Date of REC Opinion
24 Jan 2022
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion