Efficacy of a novel intraoral cooling device

• Background: Oral mucositis (OM) is a common debiliating adverse effect following high dose chemotherapy prior to bone marrow transplantation. OM often interferes with food intake and lead to malnutrition, weight loss and impaired quality of life. These adverse effects may require intravenous morphine for pain alleviation, Although uncomfortable to the patient, oral cryotherapy with ice chips has been shown to reduce the grade and extent of OM. Purpose: The purpose of the present study is to evaluate whether an intraoral cooling device has the same effectiveness as ice chips when it comes to cooling the oral mucosa. Method: Five healthy volunteers (mean age 36.2 years) chewed ice under surveillance for 30 minutes. Before the start of and immediately after the termination of the ice chewing, the intraoral mucosal temperature was measured using a modified thermometer. The same protocol was used to asses the cooling efficacy obtained by the newly developed intraoral device. Results: No statistical significant differences in cooling of teh oral mucosa (p=0.12) were obtained. The mean surface temperature following cooling was 25.7 degrees Celcius with ice chips and 24.7 degrees Celcius with the cooling device. Conclucion: The cooling device is as effective as ice chips in terms of cooling the oral mucosa. The next step in this research is to use the cooling devise to establish the highest surface temperature of the oral mucosa, during infusion of chemotherapy, that will still result in prevention of oral mucositis.

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MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Hälsovetenskap -- Omvårdnad (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Health Sciences -- Nursing (hsv//eng)

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