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Pharmacy office management of oral ulcers.

The pharmacy office is an important place for education in medicines use, because of its strong presence in the community. Patients trust the pharmacist in reference to symptoms which they consider benign, and tend to visit the pharmacist for advice before seeking the help of a physician. Professional, systematized and protocolized intervention on the part of the pharmacist when patients ask ‘What would you give me for a mouth ulcer?’ constitutes common practice [1,2]. A broad range of disorders can cause oral ulcers, including infections, mucocutaneous diseases, neoplasms, gastrointestinal, hematological or rheumatological disorders, drug use, traumatisms caused by friction with dentures, etc. [2,3]. Patients with oral ulcerations of unknown origin that have been present for over 3 weeks require urgent referral to discard possible oral cancer [3–7]. Scully et al. [5] found that only 10% of all pharmacists would refer a patient with a history suggestive of oral cancer to a physician or dentist. More recently, Evans and Gibbons [4] have reported that 82% of all pharmacists and 35% of all pharmacy assistants would direct a prospective patient to a dentist or physician. The present study was carried out to examine whether pharmacists and pharmacy office assistants in the Autonomous Community of Murcia (Spain) have adequate knowledge for the management of oral ulcers.