Is there a role of food additives in recurrent aphthous stomatitis? A prospective study with patch testing.

Abstract

Recurrent aphthous stomatitis (RAS) is a common disease of the oral mucosa with an unknown etiology. This study aimed to determine if food additives play a role in the etiology of RAS as well as to determine if patch testing can be used to detect which allergens cause RAS. This prospective study included 24 patients with RAS and 22 healthy controls. All the participants underwent patch testing for 23 food additives. In total, 21 (87.5%) RAS patients and 3 (13.6%) controls had positive patch test reactions to ≥1 allergens; the difference in the patch test positivity rate between groups was significant (P<0.05). The most common allergen that elicited positive patch test results in the patient group was cochineal red (n=15 [62.5%]), followed by azorubine (n=11 [45.8%]) and amaranth (n=6 [25%]). The present findings show that food additives might play a role in the etiology of RAS and that patch testing could be a method for determining the etiology of RAS.