Patients undergoing palliative care often develop debilitating oral conditions, including xerostomia. These conditions may significantly impact patients' quality of life. Despite the high prevalence and adverse impact of xerostomia, effective management strategies remain unclear. This scoping review was performed to elucidate effective interventions for xerostomia in patients undergoing palliative and end-of-life care. A comprehensive search strategy was employed to identify relevant studies up to August 2023. Full-text primary articles focusing on xerostomia in patients receiving palliative care were included in the review. Eleven articles were selected for analysis, and data were extracted by six reviewers. This review followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. Among the 11 studies, interventions ranged from oral care to saliva substitutes and methods to stimulate saliva secretion. The primary method of assessing xerostomia was the performance of subjective evaluations using visual analog scale scores or numerical rating scale scores. Various interventions including oral care regimens, topical treatments, and mixed efficacy outcomes were reported. Notably, only one study directly measured the saliva volume, highlighting a reliance on subjective endpoints in most studies. Although no definitive conclusions can be drawn regarding the most effective intervention, oral care was a preferred option for managing xerostomia in patients undergoing palliative care. Additionally, adjunctive treatments such as ice cubes, saline, and moisturizers showed promise but require further investigation. Objective measures should be incorporated into future intervention trials to complement subjective assessments and provide a comprehensive evaluation of xerostomia management strategies in this patient population.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.63002 | DOI Listing |
Radiother Oncol
December 2024
Department of Radiation Oncology, Eye & ENT Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China. Electronic address:
Aim: We aimed to examine the influence of various prognostic factors on the outcome of external auditory canal (EAC) cancer and create a graphical prediction tool, marking a first in this field, premised on these determinants.
Methods: We retrospectively analysed 173 patients with EAC cancer, making this the largest patient cohort in the literature. Survival analysis was performed using the Kaplan-Meier method, and the log-rank test was used to assess the differences between established prognostic variables.
Radiother Oncol
December 2024
Department of Radiation Oncology, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital and University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland; Graduate School for Health Sciences, University of Bern, Switzerland. Electronic address:
Background: Radiotherapy is essential for treating head and neck cancer but often leads to severe toxicity. Traditional predictors include anatomical location, tumor extent, and dosimetric data. Recently, biomarkers have been explored to better predict and understand toxicity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSci Immunol
December 2024
Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, Division of Biology and Medicine, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, USA.
The increasing use of anti-programmed cell death 1 (PD-1) immune checkpoint blockade has led to the emergence of immune-related adverse events (irAEs), including dysfunction of the submandibular gland (SMG). In this study, we investigated the immunoregulatory mechanism contributing to the susceptibility of the SMG to irAEs. We found that the SMGs of PD-1-deficient mice and anti-programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1)-treated mice harbor an expanded population of CD8 T cells.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys
December 2024
Department of Radiation Oncology, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center; Collaborative Innovation Center for Cancer Medicine; State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China;Guangdong Key Laboratory of Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Diagnosis and Therapy;Guangdong Provincial Clinical Research Center for Cancer, Guangzhou 510060, P.R. China. Electronic address:
Purpose: Our institution has developed an individualized elective primary tumor clinical target volume (CTVp) delineation protocol for nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) based on stepwise tumor spread patterns in intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) for over ten years. Herein, we report the long-term efficacy and toxicities in NPC patients treated under this protocol.
Methods And Materials: A total of 7,262 histologically proven, nonmetastatic NPC patients treated with IMRT following this individualized delineation protocol were retrospectively evaluated.
Although COVID-19 vaccines exhibit diverse side effects, taste and saliva secretory disorders have remained poorly understood despite their negative impact on the overall quality of life. The present study aimed to characterize oral adverse effects following COVID-19 vaccination and assess their similarities with oral symptoms in COVID-19 patients. A literature search was conducted in databases, including PubMed, LitCovid, and Google Scholar, to retrieve relevant studies.
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