Introduction
cancer, pain, mucositis, tooth, polihexanide-based mouth
ORAL MUCOSITIS, SIDE EFFECT, ORAL MUCOSITIS, CANCER, CAVITY, MUCOSITIS, SECONDARY INFECTION
Oral mucositis (OM), caused in cancer patients by irradiation or chemotherapy may be the most frequent non-hematological side effect of cancer treatment and a therapeutic challenge. At present, the treatment of oral mucositis is focused on pain management in combination with oral hygiene to reduce secondary infections. National guidelines for supportive treatment recommend standardized oral care by mouth rinsing with water or 0.9% saline solution, tooth cleaning with a soft toothbrush, cleaning of the interdental spaces with dental floss and/or interdental brushes and avoidance of noxious substances, accompanied by frequent clinical monitoring by the dentist [In patients undergoing chemotherapy, insertion of a removable dental prosthesis should be avoided during the treatment period [Although no guideline is available regarding the use of saline or sodium bicarbonate rinses in the prevention or supportive treatment of OM because of limited data, inert, bland rinses to increase oral clearance may be helpful for maintaining oral hygiene and improving patient comfort [While a broad variety of antiseptic oral rinses is available, well-tolerated antiseptics with sufficient efficacy are not specified. Due to the good tolerability of polihexanide [Since no data on antiseptic efficacy in the oral cavity are available for NaOCl/HOCl, its commercial formulation Granudacyn® should be tested for its ability to reduce viable aerobic bacteria in comparison with a highly effective mouth rinse in vivo in healthy volunteers. This would prove its efficacy and suitability to ensure that use in cancer patients to support their limited oral hygiene is conceivable. We did not perform this study in cancer patients, because we lacked knowledge about the efficacy of Granudacyn®, but we assume that antibacterial efficacy of the mouth rinses may be comparable.If the antiseptic efficacy of NaOCl/HOCl is clearly higher than for the polihexanide-based mouth rinse and ranges in the effectiveness between polihexanide and OCT based mouth rinses, hypochlorite can be considered for use during mucositis due to the lack of irritant potency.