Abstract
A prospective longitudinal study was conducted on fifty patients of histopathologically confirmed head and neck cancer with the main aim to assess the nasal mucociliary clearance, pre-and post-irradiation; and to compare the findings with the healthy non-irradiated age and sex-matched controls. All the patients underwent saccharin particle test for nasal mucociliary clearance before commencement of radiation therapy and again within 6 months of completion of radiation therapy. The difference between the saccharin perception times of nasal mucosa in the healthy non-irradiated controls and the pre-irradiated head and neck cancer patients were statistically inssignificant (P>0.05). But, the difference between the saccharin perception times of nasal mucosa in the pre-and post-irradiated head and neck cancer patients was found to be statistically significant (P=0). It is concluded that even indirect irradiation of nasal mucosa in head and neck cancer patients significantly affect its ciliary activity. Significance of total radiation dosage along with chemotherapy in some cases was also studied.
Key Words: Nasal mucosa, mucociliary clearance, head and neck cancer, irradiation, radiotherapy, saccharin perception time
Full Text
The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (77.2 KB).
References
- 1.Stringer SP, Stiles W, Slattery WH, Krumerman J, Parsons JT, Mendenhall WM, et al. Nasal mucociliary clearance after radiation therapy. Laryngoscope. 1995;105:380–2. doi: 10.1288/00005537-199504000-00008. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- 2.Lou PJ, Chen WP, Tai CC. Delayed irradiation effects on nasal epithelium in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma-an ultrastructural study. Annal Otol Rhinol Laryngol. 1999;108:474–80. doi: 10.1177/000348949910800510. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- 3.Andersen I, Camper P, Jensen PL, Philipson K, Proctor DF. A comparison of nasal and tracheobronchial clearance. Arch Environment Health. 1974;29:290–3. doi: 10.1080/00039896.1974.10666589. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- 4.Yadav SP, Khan SJ, Singh J, Ranga RK. Nasal mucociliary clearance in patients with tracheostomy. Indian J Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 2003;55:73–5. doi: 10.1007/BF02992442. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- 5.Paltieli Y, Fradis M, Ben-David J, Podoshin L, Shiti H, Kam Z. In vivo measurement of human nasal mucociliary motility using a laser light scattering instrument. Annal Otol Rhinol Laryngol. 1997;106:859–62. doi: 10.1177/000348949710601009. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- 6.Soane RJ, Carney AS, Jones NS, Frier M, Perkins AC, Davis SS, Illum L. The effect of the nasal cycle on mucociliary clearance. Clin Otolaryngol. 2001;26:9–15. doi: 10.1046/j.1365-2273.2001.00423.x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]