Treatment of xerostomia following radiotherapy: does age matter?

The goals of this work were to investigate the effect of a mucin-containing spray on chronic xerostomia after radiotherapy in the head and neck region and to lean about the influence of age on the results of this treatment. A total of 73 patients with xerostomia following radiotherapy for various malignant disease in the head and neck region tested a bottle of the mucin spray (SALIVA-medac) and filled ina questionnaire about xerostomia. In all, 59 questionnaires were completed and returned. All patients had had some form of prior treatment for xerostomia, which was applied an average (mean) of 16 times per day (median 15 times per day). The mucin spray had to be used less frequently, i.e. 11 times daily (median 5 times per day) (P<0.001, Wilcoxon rank test). Also, the patients reported sleeping significantly better when using the mucin spray [2.9 against 3.9 (P<0.00 I by Wilcoxon rank test) in the German school marking system, where 1=very good and 6=poor]. As far as the frequency of saliva substitute use is concerned, on average older patients had a benefit from using the spray. However, older patients had a clear benefit seen in the individual improvement in the reported quality of sleep when using the mucin spray. The slope of improvement in sleep quality (school-type points) over age (years) was 0.3 points/10 years. In this explorative study the mucin spray was found to be useful against xerostomia in irradiated patients. Older patients seem to derive especial benefit from its use.