Dataset Information

Intravenous fluids for pain management in head and neck cancer patients undergoing chemoradiation.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Pain due to oral mucositis affects the majority of patients receiving chemoradiation (CRT) for head and neck cancer (HNC), and often results in dehydration. Anecdotally, intravenous (IV) fluids administered during treatment for the resultant dehydration was found to alleviate this pain. The purpose of this retrospective study was to evaluate the effectiveness of IV fluids as a method pain management in this patient population.

Methods

Patients with oral mucositis pain, secondary to CRT for HNC, were given IV fluids according to standard clinic protocol. Patients were evaluated using orthostatic vital signs and prospectively surveyed pre- and post-IV fluid administration, which included the Visual Analog Scale (VAS) for pain. Difference in pain pre- and post-IV fluid administration was evaluated using a two-tailed paired Student's t-test.

Results

Twenty-four patients with a total of 31 fluid administrations was available for analysis. Twenty-three patients were receiving or had recently completed CRT. One patient was receiving radiation alone. Six instances of fluid administration were excluded due to: refusal to complete the survey, concurrent pulmonary embolism, concurrent pain medication, and drug seeking behavior. Average pain score decreased from 6.5 [standard deviation (SD) 2.1] prior to IV fluids to 4.0 (SD 2.4) following fluid administration (P<0.001).

Conclusions

To our knowledge, this is the first report directly correlating IV fluid administration with pain relief, even in the absence of orthostasis. Our findings indicate that in patients undergoing CRT for HNC, the use of IV fluids alone was effective in acutely and significantly reducing pain secondary to oral mucositis.

SUBMITTER: Rivers CI

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8184454 | biostudies-literature | 2021 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Intravenous fluids for pain management in head and neck cancer patients undergoing chemoradiation.

Rivers Charlotte I CI Iovoli Austin J AJ Chatterjee Udit U Hermann Gregory M GM Singh Anurag K AK

Annals of translational medicine 20210501 10

<h4>Background</h4>Pain due to oral mucositis affects the majority of patients receiving chemoradiation (CRT) for head and neck cancer (HNC), and often results in dehydration. Anecdotally, intravenous (IV) fluids administered during treatment for the resultant dehydration was found to alleviate this pain. The purpose of this retrospective study was to evaluate the effectiveness of IV fluids as a method pain management in this patient population.<h4>Methods</h4>Patients with oral mucositis pain, ...[more]

PMID: 34164546

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Project description:BackgroundEpidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) activation is associated with increased production of interleukin 6 (IL6), which is intensified by radiotherapy (RT) induced inflammatory response. Elevated IL6 levels intensifies RT-induced anemia by upregulating hepcidin causing functional iron deficiency. Cetuximab, an EGFR inhibitor, has been associated with lower rates of anemia for locally advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). We hypothesized that concomitant cetuximab could prevent RT-induced anemia.MethodsWe queried our institutional head and neck cancers database for non-metastatic HNSCC cases that received RT with concomitant cetuximab or RT-only between 2006 and 2018. Cetuximab was administered for some high-risk cases medically unfit for platinum agents per multidisciplinary team evaluation. We only included patients who had at least one complete blood count in the 4 months preceding and after RT. We compared the prevalence of anemia (defined as hemoglobin (Hb) below 12 g/dL in females and 13 g/dL in males) and mean Hb levels at baseline and after RT. Improvement of anemia/Hb (resolution of baseline anemia and/or an increase of baseline Hb ≥1 g/dL after RT), and overall survival (OS) in relation to anemia/Hb dynamics were also compared.ResultsA total of 171 patients were identified equally distributed between cetuximab-plus-RT and RT-only groups. The cetuximab-plus-RT group had more locally-advanced stage, oropharyngeal and high grade tumors (p < 0.001 for all). Baseline anemia/Hb were similar, however anemia after RT conclusion was higher in the cetuximab-plus-RT vs RT-only (63.5% vs. 44.2%; p = 0.017), with a mean Hb of 11.98 g/dL vs. 12.9 g/dL; p = 0.003, for both respectively. This contributed to significantly worse anemia/Hb improvement for cetuximab-plus-RT (18.8% vs. 37.2%; p = 0.007). This effect was maintained after adjusting for other factors in multivariate analysis. The prevalence of iron, vitamin-B12 and folate deficiencies; and chronic kidney disease, was non-different. Baseline anemia was associated with worse OS (p = 0.0052) for the whole study cohort. Nevertheless, improvement of anemia/Hb was only marginally associated with better OS (p = 0.068).ConclusionsIn contrast to previous studies, cetuximab was not associated with lower rates of anemia after RT for nonmetastatic HNSCC patients compared to RT-alone. Dedicated prospective studies are needed to elucidate the effect of cetuximab on RT-induced anemia.

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Dataset Information

Intravenous fluids for pain management in head and neck cancer patients undergoing chemoradiation.

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Publications

Intravenous fluids for pain management in head and neck cancer patients undergoing chemoradiation.

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