Professional oral health care reduces oral mucositis pain in patients treated by superselective intra-arterial chemotherapy concurrent with radiotherapy for oral cancer.

OBJECTIVE

Oral mucositis (OM) is a painful complication of radiation therapy (RT) for head and neck cancer. OM can compromise nutrition, require opioid analgesics and hospitalization for pain control, and lead to interruption of treatment. Severe oral mucositis appears inevitable in superselective intra-arterial chemotherapy concurrent with radiotherapy (SSIACRT), requiring management of OM for the patient. The objective of this study was to assess the utility of professional oral health care (POHC) for the management of OM in patients undergoing SSIACRT.

METHODS

Thirty-three patients were enrolled in this study. The first 17 patients underwent SSIACRT before we created an oral management team, and thus did not receive POHC. The remaining 16 patients received POHC. Fever duration, duration of oral feeding difficulty, opioid usage, duration of opioid administration, duration of hospitalization, and number of hospital days from the end of irradiation to discharge were compared between these two groups.

RESULTS

Median total dose of morphine during SSIACRT, median number of hospital days from end of irradiation to discharge, and duration of hospitalization all differed significantly between groups (P < 0.05). Duration of opioid administration, fever duration, and duration of oral feeding difficulty did not differ significantly between groups.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings indicate that POHC may reduce opioid use and shorten the hospital stay. Such results might be obtained through infection control by POHC. This report appears to be the first study to evaluate the efficiency of POHC in SSIACRT for oral cancer from the perspective of mucositis pain and opioid use.