Effects of buccal green tea ice on preventing oral mucositis in patients undergoing radiotherapy for nasopharyngeal carcinoma

Abstract

Objective To observe the effects of buccal green tea ice on preventing and controlling radioactive oral mucositis caused by radiotherapy for nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Methods In this single-blind quasi-experiment, totally 160 patients diagnosed with nasopharyngeal carcinoma by histopathology or cytology and treated in the Department of Oncology, Taizhou People's Hospital from April 2014 to April 2018 were selected by convenient sampling and randomized into control (n=41) , buccal ice (n=40) , green tea mouthwash (n=40) and buccal green ice tea (n=39) groups. Since radiotherapy, patients in the control group received conventional nursing care; patients in the buccal ice group received buccal ice; patients in the green tea mouthwash group received green tea mouthwash; and patients in the buccal green tea ice group received buccal green tea ice. The incidence of oral mucosa response and pain grading were compared among the four groups. Results The incidence rates of oral mucosa response after radiotherapy were 85.37%, 97.50%, 92.50% and 79.49% in control, buccal ice, green tea mouthwash and buccal green ice tea groups. The incidence rates of oral mucosa response 1 week after radiotherapy were 100.00%, 72.50%, 77.50% and 66.67% in control, buccal ice, green tea mouthwash and buccal green ice tea groups and there was statistically significant difference between the four groups (P<0.05) . There was statistically significant difference in the pain levels 1 week after radiotherapy between the four groups (P<0.05) . Totally 41 cases (100.0%) in the control group, 35 (87.5%) in the ice group, 39 (97.5%) in the green tea group and 26 (66.7%) in the buccal green tea ice group suffered pain 1 week after radiotherapy. Conclusions Buccal green tea ice can effectively alleviate the severity of oral mucositis in patients undergoing radiotherapy for nasopharyngeal carcinoma, reduce their pain, ameliorate their clinical symptoms, and prevent radioactive oral mucositis caused by nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Key words: Nasopharyngeal neoplasms; Radiotherapy; Pain; Radioactive oral mucositis; Green tea; Ice