Association between geographic tongue and personal temperament based on the knowledge of Persian medicine

Abstract

Background: Geographic tongue (GT) is one of the benign inflammatory oral diseases with unknown etiology. Objectives: The present study aimed to find the correlation between temperament (mizaj) and GT lesions in the context of Persian medicine and conventional approach. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 401 eligible participants were selected, 201 as the case group and 200 as the control group. After obtaining informed consent, the participants were asked to fill out a questionnaire. Then, the collected data were analyzed using SPSS, version 21. Results: Patients with GT were moderate regarding hot-cold temperament, and they had dry temperament. There was a statistically significant relationship between dry temperament and GT lesions (P value = 0.037). In the control group, people without GT lesion possessed average temperament either regarding hot-cold or wet-dry temperament. Moreover, there was a statistically significant relationship between hot-dry temperament and GT lesions (P value = 0.002). Conclusions: The results of our study showed a higher frequency of GT in dry temperament. The dominant pattern for people with GT in compound and simple temperament was hot-dry and dry, respectively. The second more frequent temperament was hot. Following temperament change, treatment of GT lesion or alleviation of its disturbing symptoms is an issue, which might be determined by conducting basic research and well-designed clinical trials in the future.