Oral cryotherapy is an effective and well-tolerated therapy to alleviate mucositis and consequently reduce the number of days with i.v. opioids among patients treated with myeloablative therapy before BMT.

Nurses caring for patients treated with myeloablative therapy should place high priority to prevent oral mucositis and hereby reduce its side effects.

Purpose To evaluate the feasibility of oral cryotherapy (OC) in children and to investigate if OC reduces the incidence of severe oral mucositis (OM), oral pain, and opioid use in children undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) . Methods Fifty-three children, 4–17 years old, scheduled for HSCT in Sweden were included and randomized to OC or control using a computer-generated list. OC instructions were to cool the mouth with ice for as long as possible during chemotherapy infusions with an intended time of ≥ 30 min. Feasibility criteria in the OC group were as follows: (1) compliance ≥ 70%; (2) considerable discomfort during OC < 20%; (3) no serious adverse events; and (4) ice administered to all children. Grade of OM and oral pain was recorded daily using the WHO-Oral Toxicity Scale (WHO-OTS), Children’s International Oral Mucositis Evaluation Scale, and Numerical Rating Scale. Use of opioids was collected from the medical records. Results Forty-nine children (mean age 10.5 years) were included in analysis (OC = 26, control = 23). The feasibility criteria were not met. Compliance was poor, especially for the younger children, and only 15 children (58%) used OC as instructed. Severe OM (WHO-OTS ≥ 3) was recorded in 26 children (OC = 15, control = 11). OC did not reduce the incidence of severe OM, oral pain, or opioid use. Conclusion The feasibility criteria were not met, and the RCT could not show that OC reduces the incidence of severe OM, oral pain, or opioid use in pediatric patients treated with a variety of conditioning regimens for HSCT. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov id: NCT01789658 Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s00520-019-05258-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

PurposeMost of the patients who receive myeloablative therapy prior to stem cell transplantation develop oral mucositis (OM). This adverse reaction manifests as oral mucosal erythema and ulcerations and may require high doses of morphine for pain alleviation. OM may also interfere with food intake and result in weight loss, a need for parenteral nutrition, and impaired quality of life. To date, there have been very few studies of evidence-based interventions for the prevention of OM. Cryotherapy, using ice chips, has been shown to reduce in an efficient manner the severity and extent of OM, although clinical applications are still limited due to several shortcomings, such as adverse tooth sensations, problems with infectious organisms in the water, nausea, and uneven cooling of the oral mucosa. The present proof-of-concept study was conducted to compare the tolerability, temperature reduction, and cooling distribution profiles of an intra-oral cooling device and ice chips in healthy volunteers who did not receive myeloablative treatment, and therefore, did not experience the symptoms of OM.MethodsTwenty healthy volunteers used the cooling device and ice chips for a maximum of 60 min each, using a cross-over design. The baseline and final temperatures were measured at eight intra-oral locations using an infra-red thermographic camera. The thermographic images were analysed using two digital software packages. A questionnaire was used to assess the tolerability levels of the two interventions.ResultsThe intra-oral cooling device was significantly better tolerated than the ice-chips (p = 0.0118). The two interventions were equally effective regarding temperature reduction and cooling distribution.ConclusionsThe intra-oral cooling device shows superior tolerability in healthy volunteers. Furthermore, this study shows that temperature reduction and cooling distribution are achieved equally well using either method.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00280-017-3434-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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