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The impact of radiation caries in the quality of life of head and neck cancer patients

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Abstract

Purpose

The objective of this multicentre study was to verify the relationship between the scores of quality of life (QoL) and the decayed, missing and filled teeth (DMFT) and radiation caries (RC) in patients treated with radiation therapy (RT) for head and neck cancer, and through this to determine if RC is capable of causing a significant decrease in the QoL.

Methods

One hundred patients were divided into 2 groups: patients with at least 1 year of RT completion who developed RC (study group, n = 50); and patients with at least 1 year of RT completion who did not develop RC (control group, n = 50). All patients answered the Brazilian–Portuguese version of the University of Washington quality of life (UW-QoL) questionnaire, which was divided into physical and social–emotional functioning domains and evaluated the DMFT index score.

Results

The mean score of QoL was 927.2 in the control group and 878.1 in the study group (P = 0.24). The mean score of DMFT was 30.5 in the study group and 20.7 in the control group (P = 0.001). The items recreation and saliva, which belong to the physical function domain, showed a statistically significant difference between the study and control groups (P = 0.031 and P = 0.047, respectively). Saliva was the item with the higher number of patient complaints in both groups.

Conclusion

RC had a negative impact on the QoL of HNC patients.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - Brasil (CAPES) - Finance Code 001 partially funded this study; São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP, Brazil) partially funded this study (process numbers: 2013/18402-8; 2018/02233-6; 2018/04657-8); Alan Roger Santos-Silva is a research grantee of The National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq, Brazil).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Oral Diagnosis Department, Semiology Area, Piracicaba Dental School, University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Piracicaba, São Paulo, Brazil

    Mariana de Pauli Paglioni, Natalia Rangel Palmier, Marcio Ajudarte Lopes & Alan Roger Santos-Silva

  2. Dental Oncology Service, São Paulo State Cancer Institute (ICESP-FMUSP), São Paulo, Brazil

    Ana Carolina Prado-Ribeiro & Thaís Bianca Brandão

  3. Department of Oral Medicine, Sírio Libanês Hospital, São Paulo, Brazil

    Eduardo Rodrigues Fregnani

  4. Paediatric Dentistry Department, Piracicaba Dental School, University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Piracicaba, São Paulo, Brazil

    Maria Beatriz Duarte Gavião

  5. College of Dentistry, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

    Ana Paula Dias Ribeiro & Cesar Augusto Migliorati

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  1. Mariana de Pauli Paglioni
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Correspondence to Ana Carolina Prado-Ribeiro.

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de Pauli Paglioni, M., Palmier, N.R., Prado-Ribeiro, A.C. et al. The impact of radiation caries in the quality of life of head and neck cancer patients. Support Care Cancer 28, 2977–2984 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-019-05171-8

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