Painful lesions and related infections in the mouth, on the tongue and in the throat are a common side effect of cancer treatments. If you have these, you are far, far from alone.
 
Sometimes the condition, known as oral mucositis, is so painful that cancer patients are unable to eat and/or unable to continue their life-saving treatments until the pain subsides. 

Drs. Nathaniel S. Treister and Sook-Bin Woo, both of Harvard School of Dental Medicine, estimate at emedicine that 400,000 cancer patients each year wrestle with oral mucositis.  More specifically, three-quarters of patients who receive so-called 'conditioning regimens' in preparation for hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) and four-out-of-every-ten patients who are treated with chemotherapy will get oral mucositis.  For patients being treated for head and neck cancer, the correlation with oral mucositis is virtually 100%.

The good news is that in the United States and around the world, a variety of promising treatments for oral mucositis are either already on the market or in late stage development. In addition, some of the treatments hold the promise of also preventing the occurrence of oral mucositis in the first place.

A 2008 survey cited by EUSA Pharma, one of the makers of oral mucositis treatments, found that 90% of those who suffer oral ulcerations and inflammation as a result of cancer therapy feel it adversely affects their quality of life.  The most common symptoms listed by the 427 survey respondents were redness and swelling (54 percent), burning pain (47 percent), difficulty opening one's mouth (46 percent), difficulty speaking (40 percent) and tooth and/or gum disease (35 percent).

Surprisingly, only about half of those suffering from oral mucositis are formally diagnosed with it.  Worse, many health care providers remain unaware of the emergence of effective treatments.

There are an abundance of reasons for patients, their families and their health care providers to educate themselves about oral mucositis and remain informed on the progress being made in the treatment and prevention of this condition.  When managed early and properly, patients can spare themselves unnecessary pain, treatment disruputions and potentially life-threatening complications.

Health professional and insurers who are keyed into the latest developments pertaining to oral mucositis can reduce or eliminate the severity of the side effect, thus enabling the medical team to give their full attention to addressing the underlying cancer.  Patients who never develop oral mucositis or are quickly and effectively treated for it, reduce the costs of their treatments by untold thousands of dollars.

The Oral Mucositis Newswire will endeavor to keep the public abreast of all pertinent developments pertaining to this common condition and educate patients, their families, health care professionals, insurers and policymakers of related news.

Resources:

• Chemotherapy-Induced Oral Mucositis by Drs. Treister and Woo
• Access Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Makers of MuGard)
• EKR Therapeutics Inc. (Makers of Gelclair)
• EUSA Pharma Inc. (Makers of Caphosol)

Harvard School of Dental Medicine Photo: Dr. Nathaniel S. Treister