Study of the Effectiveness of Cevimeline on Oral Health in Patients With Radiation Induced Xerostomia

Treatment of advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (SCCA) requires aggressive therapy often combining surgical interventions with radiation therapy. Besides surveillance for persistent or recurrent cancer, clinicians seek to help minimize the side effects resulting from these aggressive treatments. Xerostomia, or "dry mouth", impacts each patient's long term health and quality of life due to the significant and diverse health consequences of having too little saliva. Normal swallowing, speaking, resistance to infection, and taste acuity are health domains that are affected by dry mouth. Psycho-social functioning decreases for many of these patients due to the extra effort to communicate and socialize (Locker D 2004). Xerostomia is often a consequence of radiation treatment (XRT), especially when the XRT fields encompass the parotid glands and submandibular glands bilaterally. The disability and consequences of xerostomia extend beyond dysphagia, poor appetite secondary to difficulty of mastication, and loss of taste (Chambers et al. Xerostomia 2004). Since saliva is essential to normal oral flora and healthy teeth, the lack of saliva in these patients can dramatically and rapidly result in a decline of the patient's oral health. Dental complications can occur and present significant ongoing medical and surgical problems. Our study proposes to use the Oral Health Impact Profile, OHIP-49, to measure disease-specific quality of life and functional outcomes due to radiation related xerostomia in head and neck cancer patients. The evaluation of patient QOL concomitantly with patient functioning as proposed in the SMILE protocol is an "evidence study to evaluate treatment effectiveness". The use of patient-oriented outcome measures are increasingly important to health insurers and government, but these measures are also aligned with the World Health Organization's mandate that health is a resource to manage which must be utilized and preserved so that individuals experience and gain satisfaction from living (Epstein J.1986). The OHIP-49 is patient reported outcome measure which is publicly available, validated in adult populations world-wide, and can be used an effectiveness measure. The questions are easy to answer and are based upon a 5 level likert type scale reflecting frequency of "bother" within individual psychosocial domains.