The latest research Reseach conducted at the Tufts University School of Dental Medicine shows enough evidence that chronic ulcerative stomatitis, a disease that has painful recurring sores in the mouth, is an autoimmune disease.
Only 39 cases of this disease have been identified as a clinically-distinct condition in 1989. it Chronic ulcerative stomatitishas been diagnosed most frequently in white women in their 40s and 50s and may appear similar to oral erosive lichen planus. This is what the latest research has gone on to uncover.
Currently, diagnosing CUS requires a surgical biopsy which then must be sent to an outside lab for special processing for immunofluorescence microscopic examination as was stated by Dr. Lynn Solomon, associate professor in the department of oral and maxillofacial pathology at Tufts. The thing with Chronic ulcerative stomatitis is that precise diagnosis is significant because the usual treatment option for immunologically-mediated diseases, corticosteroids, is often not effective in treating CUS.
The studies that have been conducted before this have gone on to prove that CUS patients have specific auto-antibodies. These are the antibodies that are produced by an immune response to the body's own tissue. However, it is not certain whether it is these auto-antibodies which were contributing to CUS or part of a benign biological process. Furthermore, it has been determined that auto-antibodies that fall under the category of patho-genetic antibodies do contribute to the disease.
The latest research has shown that these antibodies have no effect at low concentrations. At higher concentrations, the researchers saw that there is a complete detachment of the surface layer of tissue called the epithelium. These anti-bodies do not cause damage to the surface epithelial cells, but cause a change in the cell-binding proteins. This goes on to result in weakened cohesion and the ultimate breakdown of the tissue which then showcase as sores which are the main characteristics of CUS.