PERCEPTION OF ORAL PROBLEMS IN PATIENTS WITH ADVANCED CANCER

The results of the previous research, aimed to study the per-ception of and attitude to the end-of-life in the incurable cancer patients as well as the elderly aged 85 and older, revealed that independently from the cause of the life limitation, perceptions of and attitudes to the end-of-life are mainly similar. Moreover, it must be highlighted that the complaints on oral cavity were stated only by the single patients from the sample. We aimed to verify if the less attention from the sides of pa-tients towards the oral cavity symptoms/complaints were caused by the "poor" format of semi-structured interviews that were not focused on the oral status. The sample of the research included 50 advanced cancer pa-tients aged 20 to 75, under integrated palliative treatment (care). We applied for two-part questionnaire in the first part of which the patients had to choose one out of the alternative answers to the concrete questions related to oral cavity problems. The sec-ond part of the questionnaire was filled by the researcher/dentist based on the information obtained through examination of the patient's oral cavity. Based on the results of the data processing it was concluded that conditions recorded by a dentist were more severe and seri-ous in comparison to what the patients stated. Furthermore, it must be taken into consideration that the con-ditions and pathologies of oral cavity registered during our re-search are subject to improvement and treatment and, relevant-ly, their correct management has potential to improve the quality of life for incurable cancer patients.