[Planning dental care and orthodontic treatment for children afflicted with malignant hematological diseases].

The Problem: In France, cancer affects 1 to 3% of all children and represents the second most frequent cause of mortality among children younger than fifteen. Malignant blood diseases are the most frequently occurring childhood cancers. Although their mortality rate has been tending to decrease, they often seem to develop after "opportunistic" latent infections persist, undetected, in un-eradicated sites that may be of dental origin. This infectious risk, frequently undiagnosed in hospitals, should be of concern to both general dentists and orthodontists.

Objectives: General dentists and orthodontists each have specific roles to play in teaching children about oral health at an early age and in detecting and eradicating infection as well as in seeing at risk children in regular follow-up visits.

Discussion: Dentists should examine children on regularly scheduled preventive appointments and treat dental caries when they discover it. Orthodontists, who see the children they are treating on frequently scheduled appointments, should always be on the alert for incipient caries in their patients and be careful to make the appliances they wear as well fitting and non-irritating as possible to minimize the risk of inflammation and development of sore spots. Both dentists and orthodontists should teach their patients how to maintain healthy diets and good oral hygiene. They may be called upon to provide local relief for acute lesions that chemotherapy sometimes causes in the soft tissues of patients with hematological cancers and to modify irritating appliances.