Abstract
In recent years, the usefulness of polaprezinc for oral mucositis has been reported. Generally, surgical treatment, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy together or alone are used for cancer treatment. Oral mucositis occurs as a harmful phenomenon in almost 100％ of cases, and the combination of radiation and chemotherapy is accompanied by intense sharp pain and bleeding. We used sodium alginate and solcoseryl to treat oral mucositis, but these were not sufficiently effective in many cases and the treatment had to be stopped. Polaprezinc provides an antioxidant action, mucous membrane protection, wound healing promotion, and is reported to be effective for oral mucositis. We considered that administration of the drug through the oral cavity and oral mucosa by gargling rather than internal administration facilitated direct contact with the drug, and we applied this method in eight chemoradiotherapy head and neck cancer patients. We report a summary of these eight cases in which treatment did not need to be stopped due to oral mucositis by using polaprezinc gargle.
