THURSDAY, April 19 (HealthDay News) -- Pentoxifylline has only a small benefit over placebo in treating recurrent aphthous stomatitis, and the mouth ulcers tend to return once treatment stops, according to a study in the April issue of Archives of Dermatology.
Martin H. Thornhill, Ph.D., from the University of Sheffield School of Clinical Dentistry in the United Kingdom, and colleagues randomized 26 patients with recurrent aphthous stomatitis to either pentoxifylline (400 mg three times a day) or placebo for 60 days, followed by 60 days of no treatment.
The researchers found that patients taking pentoxifylline had significantly smaller ulcers and tended to have fewer ulcers and more ulcer-free days than the placebo group, although the differences were small. Side effects were common in the pentoxifylline group, and ulcers returned to their pre-trial condition after treatment stopped.
Previous open-label trials had indicated that pentoxifylline was an effective long-term treatment for mouth ulcers, Alison Bruce, M.D., and Roy S. Rogers III, M.D., from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., noted in an accompanying editorial. "As with many dermatologic conditions, there appears to be no single, uniformly effective therapy for managing these common and debilitating oral ulcerative conditions," they wrote.
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