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Associations between oral complications and days to death in palliative care patients

Supportive Care in Cancer Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

Adverse oral symptoms gradually appear in advanced cancer patients as the disease progresses. We retrospectively investigated the associations between the incidence of oral problems and the days to death (DTD) in patients receiving palliative care.

Methods

The dental assessment sheets and medical charts of 105 patients who had been admitted into the palliative care unit at our hospital were examined. Case data included evaluations of organic and functional oral conditions at the time of admission for all patients. The cohort was divided into two groups according to the DTD as the short group (<28 days from the time of dental assessment until death) and the long group (≥28 days). We compared the incidences of organic and functional oral problems between these groups.

Results

Dry mouth, tongue inflammation, and bleeding spots were significantly more frequent in the short group than in the long group (78 vs. 54 % for dry mouth, 67 vs. 46 % for tongue inflammation, 35 vs. 14 % for bleeding spots, respectively; p < 0.05). Tongue coating and candidiasis were comparable between the two groups. Dysphagia was significantly more common in the short group (43 %) than in the long group (20 %) (p = 0.01), as was assistance with oral health care (76 vs. 50 %) (p = 0.01).

Conclusions

Our findings suggest that, during palliative care, oral complications appear more frequently when the DTD period is shorter. These symptoms may be useful indicators when deciding on the proper timing of intensive oral care intervention to decrease oral problems and pain in terminally ill patients.

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Conflict of interest

This study was partially supported by a Longevity Sciences grant (25-7) from the National Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology and the 8020 Research Grant for fiscal 2014 from the 8020 Promotion Foundation (14-2-06), Japan.

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Correspondence to K. Matsuo.

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Matsuo, K., Watanabe, R., Kanamori, D. et al. Associations between oral complications and days to death in palliative care patients. Support Care Cancer 24, 157–161 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-015-2759-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-015-2759-9

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