Pilocarpine treatment in a mixed cohort of xerostomic patients

Abstract

Treatment with pilocarpine hydrochloride tablets may improve saliva secretion in patients taking xerogenic medications and/or suffering from metabolic sialosis expanding the beneficial potential of this sialogogue.

A systematic review of salivary gland hypofunction and xerostomia induced by cancer therapies: management strategies and economic impact

“…Nine studies were randomized controlled trials (one was cross-over with patients as their own controls) [92][93][94][95][96][97][98][99][100] and seven were before and after studies (one controlled) [101][102][103][104][105][106][107]. Seven studies assessed xerostomia [94, 99-102, 104, 105] and nine studies evaluated both xerostomia and salivary flow rate [92, 93, 95-98, 103, 106, 107].…”

“…The effect of oral pilocarpine were also assessed after total body irradiation and radioactive iodine treatment reporting improvement of xerostomia [102] and a moderate although transient increase in whole saliva flow rates [106,107] with no improvement of xerostomia [100], respectively, but the small number of patients included in these studies limits interpretation of the results.…”

Xerostomia of Various Etiologies: A Review of the Literature

“…Adverse effects of this agent include hypotension and vomiting [46]. Pilocarpine hydrochloride in 2.5-10 mg dose can improve salivary flow in irradiated patients [29]; however, its application is limited to certain cases only [32].…”

A simple test for salivary gland function measuring resting and stimulated submandibular and sublingual secretions

“…28 Thus, the assay system reflects the residual gland function in sublingual and submandibular glands via different specific transduction pathways or receptors. Recently, improvement of dry mouth was reported in clinical trials of pilocarpine 29 and by gustatory stimuli such as citric acid 30 and malic acid. 24 Accordingly, this new method can be used as a significant predictor of efficiency in clinical trials by evaluation of the retained functional ability of salivary glands and screening of hyposalivation not only for healthy persons but also for bedridden and disabled elderly persons, because it is simple and safe.…”