Abstract
Severe oral mucositis (OM) can develop in patients with blood cancer undergoing chemotherapy, and it sometimes causes serious infection in addition to pain, thereby affecting the patient’s quality of life. The aim of this study was to investigate the preventive effect of professional oral health management (POHM) against OM in patients undergoing autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.
Thirty-three patients who were diagnosed with multiple myeloma or malignant lymphoma and received autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation at Tokushima University Hospital from November 2004 to June 2013 were enrolled in this study. The subjects were divided into two groups: before establishment of the POHM system for patients with blood cancer; and after establishment of the POHM system. The grade of OM (NCI-CTCAE version 3), duration of fever, clinical parameters, and prescription days of gargle or druguse in each patient were investigated.
There were positive correlations between the duration of Grade 2 or 3 OM and the days of fever over 37.5°C, prescription days of gargleuse including local anesthetic components, or those of analgesic druguse. The days of Grade 3 OM in the group after establishment of the POHM system decreased significantly compared with those in the group before its establishment.
These results suggest that the duration of severe OM is associated with the days of fever and prescription days of druguse. Furthermore, POHM might be effective for the prevention of severe OM in patients undergoing autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantaton.
