Caries and periodontal disease in cancer survivors.
METHODS
PubMed and EMBASE were searched for articles published between 1 January 1990 and 31 December 2008.


METHODS
Eligible studies were those that included dental caries and periodontal disease and pre-cancer dental clearance protocols in cancer patients undergoing head and neck radiotherapy, chemotherapy or combined treatment modalities. Rather than any study inclusion criteria this review had a number of exclusion criteria instead: systematic and non-systematic reviews; microbiology studies; growth and development studies; organ transplant studies; studies eliciting dental complications through questionnaires, studies reporting data from previous publications; phase I and II studies; opinion papers and case reports; articles published before 1990. All reports also had to be in English.


METHODS
Each article was reviewed by two authors independently with pilot-tested data collection forms. No quality assessment was pre-specified.


RESULTS
Sixty-four articles were included. Forty-six of these were observational (24 cohort, eight case control, 14 cross-sectional), and 18 were interventional studies. It is unclear how many participants this included. A weighted prevalence of caries was reported but it is unclear how the weighting was calculated. Overall the weighted prevalence was 28.1%. The overall DMFT for patients who were post-antineoplastic therapy was 9.19 (SD, 7.98; n=457). The overall plaque index for patients who were post-antineoplastic therapy was 1.38 (SD, 0.25; n=189).


CONCLUSIONS
Patients who were post-radiotherapy had the highest DMFT compared to those who were post-chemotherapy and healthy controls.
Oral Medicine Department, FUNDALEU- Foundation to Fight against Leukemia, Hospitalization and Clinical Research Center, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Marisol
M
Michelet
D006801:Humans; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000628:therapy*; D010510:Periodontal Diseases / Q000209:etiology*; D014076:Tooth Diseases / Q000209:etiology*