Salivary cortisol levels in patients with geographic tongue and its relationship with anxiety

Background and aim: benign migratory glossitis, or geographic tongue, is usuallyan asymptomatic inflammatory disorder of unknown etiology that affects theepithelium of the tongue. among the etiologic factors proposed, emotional causeswere suspected by several investigators. the objective of this study was to evaluatethe anxiety and cortisol level in patients with geographic tongue compared withhealthy controls.materials and methods: in this case-control study, 21 patients with geographictongue referred to several educational and medical centers in hamedan city wereselected. the patients had no systemic disease or history of cigarette smoking. acontrol group of 21 healthy individuals without geographic tongue, systemicdiseases and cigarette smoking was also selected. the participants were asked tocomplete the beck anxiety inventory. also, unstimulated saliva samples werecollected to measure the salivary cortisol level in both groups. the two groups werecompared after adjusting for age and gender. the mann-whitney test was used tocompare the salivary level of cortisol in the two groups with and withoutgeographic tongue.results: the anxiety score of the geographic tongue group was higher but notsignificantly (p=0.745). the concentration of salivary cortisol was significantlyhigher in the control group (p=0.01). no strong correlation was found between thesalivary cortisol level and the beck anxiety inventory score.conclusion: it seems that among the various factors associated with geographictongue, psychological conditions are less related.