2025 Volume 7 Issue 3 Pages 127-136
Objective: Mucositis is a common side effect of chemoradiotherapy for head and neck cancer, and severe mucositis can interfere with treatment completion. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship of development of severe mucositis with oral intake in the initial treatment phase.
Methods: The subjects were patients with oropharyngeal, hypopharyngeal, and laryngeal cancer who underwent cisplatin-based chemoradiotherapy. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were conducted to examine the impact of initial oral energy intake on development of severe mucositis.
Results: Of the 63 patients in the study, 26 (41%) developed severe mucositis. In multivariate analysis, oral energy intake during the second week of treatment was independently associated with onset of severe mucositis (odds ratio 0.89, 95% CI: 0.82–0.97, p = 0.007). The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve for oral energy intake in the second week of treatment, with severe mucositis as the outcome, had an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.73 at a cutoff value of 25.2 kcal/kg/day.
Conclusion: Insufficient oral energy intake during the second week of treatment may be associated with severe mucositis. Aggressive nutritional therapy may be appropriate for patients with oral energy intake below 25 kcal/kg/day during the second week of treatment.
