Looking Treatment Complications in the Mouth

Norra Macready

JNCI J Natl Cancer Inst (2013) 105 (2): 76-77. doi: 10.1093/jnci/djs643 First published online: January 9, 2013

                                                                                                                   

Complications of the mouth occur in many cancer patients—often without warning—leaving a particularly sour taste in patients’ mouths.

Perhaps the disconnect exists because mountains of information are pushed on individuals who often are still reeling from the diagnosis, said radiation oncologist Mohan Suntha, M.D., professor of radiation oncology at the University of Maryland in Baltimore. “They’re told about the aggressive, multidisciplinary approach to their disease, and they’re told about the side effects, some of which can be dramatic. My best guess is that the dental issues are raised at that time, but when you add them to that laundry list, it’s easy to see how they drop to the bottom, given everything else the patient has to think about. So when they start to experience the dental complications, they say, ‘I was never told about this.’ That’s one reason why a dental evaluation is so important: It’s hard to ignore the issue when you’re actually being referred to the dentist.”

Oral side effects occur in virtually all patients receiving radiation for head and neck malignancies, in approximately 80% of hematopoietic stem cell transplant recipients, and in nearly 40% of chemotherapy patients. Effects range from mild and transient to severe and persistent, sometimes even permanent. “Almost every cancer therapy has associated oral complications, even if the cancer …

 

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