Burning mouth syndrome due to cadmium in a denture wearer

We report the case of a female denture wearer who was referred to our servi ce due to burning of the lips and tongue but with no visible oral lesions. Her biochemical data, complete blood cell count, sedimentation rate, thyroi d and sex hormones were normal. Tongue culture was negative. Patch tests, p erformed with a panel of 20 potential denture allergens, gave positive resu lts (+++) only to a 2% petrolatum cadmium sulfate, which was present in the denture. Removal of the denture led to the clearing up of oral symptoms in 3 days. In light of these findings, carrying out patch tests with the alle rgens related to denture materials should be considered in these cases.