Efficacy of oral cryotherapy compared to normal saline mouth wash on reducing alkylating drug induced mucositis among cancer patients at selected tertiary care hospital, Bhubaneswar

Background The most prevalent, widely recognized, and challenging side effect experienced by cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy is mucositis, which results in considerable morbidity and has the potential to impede the treatment regimen and augment therapeutic costs. Therefore, a comparison between the two experimental interventions in the present study was performed to represent the effectiveness of different treatments or preventative measures. Aim To evaluate the efficacy of oral cryotherapy compared to normal saline mouthwash in reducing alkylating drug-induced mucositis among cancer patients. Methods A Randomized controlled clinical trial-parallel group design was conducted in a tertiary care hospital in the oncology ward of Bhubaneswar, with a total number of 74 participants (of which 37 were administered cryotherapy and 37 were administered normal saline mouthwash) using the WHO mucositis assessment scale. Results Association of mucositis assessment grading with groups was performed on day 1st, 7^th day, 14^th day and 21^st day followed by intervention. The review on 21^st day revealed that 70.3% of the cryotherapy group had grade 0 mucositis, which is a big jump from 48.6% on day 14. In contrast, in the normal saline group, the corresponding increase was only 18.9% to 27.0% only. Conclusion There is clear evidence that on day 21, the improvement in mucositis grade was much higher in the cryotherapy group than in the normal saline group, as there was a significant association between mucositis grade and group (p<0.001) on day 21. CTRI Trial Registration No CTRI/2023/04/051450 Date of CTRI Trial Registration No.: 10/04/2023