Oral infection by Staphylococcus aureus in patients affected by White Sponge Nevus: a description of two cases occurred in the same family.

INTRODUCTION

White Sponge Nevus (WSN) is a rare pathology with a pathogenesis on genetic basis, a benign course and a localization affecting the mucosal keratin.WSN is usually a symptomless pathology: when pain is present, some authors reported reduction of symptoms by taking penicillin or oral tetracycline rinses, suggesting that a bacterial overinfection could be at the base of possible painful symptoms.

CASE REPORT: We describe 2 patients affected by WSN, father and son: they presented two different oral diseases associated with an infection by Staphylococcus aureus. So, we have performed a careful oral hygiene to reduce infection in the oral cavity. In the following days we prescribed 2 rinses a day with a mouthwash containing chlorhexidine digluconate at two different percentages.

DISCUSSION: Early diagnosis of this lesion is important, because it allows us to exclude other more serious diseases. In the most part of cases, WSN requires no treatment because of its benign and asymptomatic behaviour: up to now, no protocol of treatment for this condition was standardized. Even if WSN is a painless condition, sometime a correlated painful symptomatology was reported.

CONCLUSIONS

In our experience, we have achieved excellent results even with chlorhexidine digluconate rinses, considering that our treated cases were both infected by Staphylococcus aureus. We hypothesize that the corrugated plaques and the altered texture of the mucosa create the right conditions for the colonization and the development of microbial species such as saprophytic bacteria or fungal species.