The proportion of pseudo-halitosis patients in a multidisciplinary breath malodour consultation

Abstract

Aim: To report the data from a multidisciplinary bad breath consultation in Germany.

Materials and methods: In this cross sectional study, 407 patients attending a bad breath consultation were examined by a specially trained dentist, with an ENT-specialist, an internist, and a psychologist on call.

Results: All patients reported suffering from bad breath but only 72.1% showed detectable signs of breath malodour. Within this group, 92.7% revealed an oral cause, 7.3% revealed an extra-oral cause. Within the group without malodour, 76.3% had received prior diagnostics and treatments from other doctors, whereby 36% had received one or more gastroscopies and 14% had undergone an ENT operation. In only ten cases had an organoleptic evaluation of the putative malodour been performed.

Conclusion: Our data reveal that breath malodour is mainly of oral origin and that patients with pseudo-halitosis are frequently not diagnosed correctly by doctors, resulting in a considerable amount of over-treatment.