Abstract
The purpose of this study is to clarify the oral infection and oral care in patients with Leukemia.
We investigated oral infection, chemotherapy and clinical findings from their medical and nursing record of 40 patients (AML; 22 patients, ALL; 10, CML; 8) who were discharged from Internal Medicine III Kanazawa University Hospital (attached to the school of medicine) from January to December 1983.
The results were as follows.
1. The condition of oral infection appeared post chemotherapy in 16 patients and pre and post chemotherapy in 13 patients. 11 patients appeared no conditions of oral infection.
2. 24 of 29 patients suffering from oral infection had high fever over 38℃ and 21 patients had W B C counts<1000/mm3.
3. Findings of pharyngeal culture showed that Gram-negative rod such as Enterococcus, Klebsiella, Ps. aeruginosa increased only slightly in incidence of oral infection comparing with the time of admission.
4. From this study, the following point would be suggested as one of the oral care measures.
1) Nursing assessment of oral cavity.
2) Understand of patient for the necessity of the oral hygiene.
3) Implementation of nursing care.
4) Use of strict gargle of Amphotericin B or Povidone iodine as soon as possible after chemotherapy for prevention of oral infection.
