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Supportive Therapy Including Nutrition

  • Chapter
Functional Preservation and Quality of Life in Head and Neck Radiotherapy

Part of the book series: Medical Radiology ((Med Radiol Radiat Oncol))

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Modern head and neck cancer treatment, including accelerated and hyperfractionated fractionation schedules, are known to increase acute side effects to radiation. Furthermore, concurrent chemoradiation aggravates acute mucosal reaction (Brizel et al. 1998), which now has become the limiting factor in radical head and neck cancer treatment. For this reason, supportive care strategies are necessary to prevent, treat, and alleviate discomfort and to maintain nutrition and compliance to treatment.

Highly variable study designs, small sample sizes, and lack of consistent results do not allow strictly evidence-based recommendations for basic oral care and prevention and treatment of side effects, including mucositis (Rubenstein et al. 2004; Sutherland and Browman 2001). Consequentially, institutional strategies and oral care programs are based on guidelines with low levels of evidence or on clinical experience only.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Oncology, Odense University Hospital, Sdr. Boulevard 29, 5000, Odense, C Denmark

    JøRGEN Johansen MD, PhD & JøRN Herrstedt MD, DMSci

Authors
  1. JøRGEN Johansen MD, PhD
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  2. JøRN Herrstedt MD, DMSci
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Human Oncology, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine, 600 Highland Avenue, K4/332, Madison, WI, 53792, USA

    P. M. Harari MD

  2. Division of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, University of Wisconsin Medical School, 600 Highland Avenue K4/711, Madison, WI, 53792-7375, USA

    N. P. Connor PhD

  3. Department of Oncology, Aarhus University Hospital, 44 Nøerrebrogade, Building 5, Aarhus C, DK-8000, Denmark

    C. Grau MD

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© 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Johansen, J., Herrstedt, J. (2009). Supportive Therapy Including Nutrition. In: Harari, P.M., Connor, N.P., Grau, C. (eds) Functional Preservation and Quality of Life in Head and Neck Radiotherapy. Medical Radiology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-73232-7_26

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-73232-7_26

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-73231-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-73232-7

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