Research On Correlation Between Clinical Manifestation And Corresponding Factors Of Xerostomia

Xerostomia is a kind of syndrome associated with . many factors, not an independent disease. The prevalence is 30% among adults and is much higher among elder and female population.Its manifestation includes the ropy saliva, dry and splited labium, abnormal taste, burning mouth etc. The oral function such as speaking, chewing and swallowing is affected differently. Since Xerostomia is a feeling and experience, evaluated by the patients themselves, the manifestation and the accompanying syndrome are various .The corresponding factors of xerostomia include the decreased salivary secretion, age, sex, systematic diseases, medication, the mental state and so on..The aim of the present study was to learn the manifestation of which the patients mainly complained of dry mouth, the corresponding pathogenic factors and their correlation, which is helpful to build up a thinking pattern for diagnosis and therapy based on the different clinical manifestations of patients with xerostomia.This study examined the general status, subjective syndromes, objective signs, salivary secretion, autonomic nervous system condition and the laboratory indicators; calculated the constitutional proportion; analyzed the possible pathogenic factors of xerostomia and the influential factors of the unstimulated whole saliva secretion.Through the stastistic analysis we found that female patients accounted for 81.2% and most of them stopped menses, the average age was 64.8 years old, and 90% of them were above 40 years old. Among the pathogenic factors, the main systematic diseases were hypertension and digestive tract illness. The main medication was Chinese traditional medicine, anti-hypertension and sedation medicine. Anxiety and depressed mental status were also one of the important factors. It was general to have dry mouth after waking up and burning mouth syndrome. It was also found out that the oral function, drinking, wetness of mucosa, different tongue signs, parotid secretion and mental status were associated with UWS by statistical methodsFinally we could get the following conclusions :1. Decreased UWS was the main presentation of xerostomia, which was not caused by physiological changes of salivary glands.2.The course of xerostomia was long and most patients had obvious regularity. The accompanying syndromes were various, no connection with UWS. 3.Systematic diseases, medication and mental status were the main pathogenic factors and each group of patients with these factors had different clinical characteristics.