Title

Salivary oxidative stress markers in patients with recurrent aphthous stomatitis and healthy controls

Authors

Vaibhavi Mehta^1,*, Mohammad Wasif Manzoor², Esha Dabral³, Suranjana Sen⁴, Rangoli Srivastava⁵ & Pooja Arora⁶

Affiliation

¹Department of Oral Medicine and Radiology, K.M. Shah Dental College and Hospital, Sumandeep Vidyapeeth Deemed to be University, Piparia, Waghodia, Vadodara, Gujarat, India; ²Department of Pathology, Government Medical College, Satna, Madhya Pradesh, India; ³Department of Biochemistry, Index Medical College Research Center, Malvanchal University Indore, Madhya Pradesh , India; ⁴Department of Physiology, ITS dental College and hospital, Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India; ⁵Department of Public health dentistry, Faculty of Dental Sciences, SGT University, Haryana, India; ⁶Department of Prosthodontics Faculty of Dentistry, Taif University, Saudi Arabia; *Corresponding author

Email

Vaibhavi Mehta - E-mail: vaibhavishukla69@gmail.com
Mohammad Wasif Manzoor - E-mail: wasifman@gmail.com
Esha Dabral - E-mail: eshadabral5@gmail.com
Suranjana Sen - E-mail: drsuranjana.dntlgn@its.edu.in
Rangoli Srivastava - E-mail: authrangoli@gmail.com
Pooja Arora - E-mail: drpoojaprosthodontist@gmail.com

Article Type

Research Article

Date

Received August 1, 2026; Revised August 31, 2026; Accepted August 31, 2026, Published August 31, 2026

Abstract

Recurrent aphthous stomatitis remains a frequent recurrent oral ulcerative disorder, yet the clinical relevance of salivary oxidative imbalance in routine assessment remains insufficiently defined. Therefore, it is of interest to compare the unstimulated salivary malondialdehyde, total antioxidant capacity, superoxide dismutase, glutathione peroxidase, salivary flow rate, ulcer burden and pain intensity among 45 patients with active minor recurrent aphthous stomatitis and 45 age- and sex-matched healthy controls. Mean salivary malondialdehyde was significantly higher in the recurrent aphthous stomatitis group (4.21 ± 1.13 umol/L) than controls (2.68 ± 0.84 umol/L), while total antioxidant capacity, superoxide dismutase and glutathione peroxidase were significantly reduced (p<0.001 for all). Malondialdehyde showed positive correlations with ulcer count (r=0.48, p=0.001), ulcer diameter (r=0.42, p=0.004) and pain score (r=0.51, p<0.001), whereas total antioxidant capacity showed inverse correlations with these indicators. Thus, data shows that salivary oxidative stress profiling as a practical adjunct for understanding inflammatory activity in recurrent aphthous stomatitis and highlight the need for preventive antioxidant-focused clinical strategies.

Keywords

Recurrent aphthous stomatitis (RAS); saliva; oxidative stress; malondialdehyde; total antioxidant capacity; antioxidant enzymes

Citation

Mehta et al. Bioinformation 22(8): 5341-5345 (2026)

Edited by

Hiroj Bagde

ISSN

0973-2063

Publisher

Biomedical Informatics

License

This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. This is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.