Oral ailments, for instance, oral mucositis, periodontitis, gingivitis, xerostomia, Sjögren's syndrome, oral leukoplakia, oral ulcer, oral lichen planus, and oral cancer, distinctly influence the state of health on account of their unfavorable impacts on the patient's digestion, vocal function, mastication, and aesthetic needs. Past research has displayed that herbal medicine could constrain the development of several oral ailments via modulating metabolism, the participation of signaling axes, and regulating cell motility. Herbal medicines exerted favorable functions mainly by means of various signaling axes like IL-17, TNF-α, ROS, p21, NF-κB, p38, ERK, mTOR, Src, TLR4, JNK1/2, PI3K, AKT, MAPK, and MMP-2/9, the occurrence of cell cycle arrest, and osteoblastic differentiation. Besides, they inhibited inflammation and had a significant influence on the growth, migration, invasion, and apoptosis of oral cancer cells. This review summed up the preclinical and clinical studies of herbal medicine in treating oral diseases, presented the curative effect and action mechanism of herbal medicine, and pointed out a direction for pharmaceutical exploitation and the following research fields.
Lina Yang (Sun,) studied this question.