[Future therapy strategies for salivary gland impairment]

Saliva offers many modalities, mainly protecting the oral tissues by maintaining a local healthy environment. Several conditions cause salivary gland secretion impairment, in which irradiation therapy to the head and neck cancer patients is one of the most rigorous, leading to major decline in quality of life. At present, conventional therapy provides a limited answer for this situation. In the last two decades, several strategies had been proposed to overcome this problem. These approaches can be divided into three branches: 1. Preventing salivary gland damage before irradiation therapy. 2. Protecting the secretory parenchymal tissue during the course of irradiation and, 3. Trying to regenerate salivary gland function after irradiation damage has already occurred. These attitudes may provide future beneficial modalities to salivary gland dysfunction especially in patients were salivary gland function is diminished.