Kim Kelly on Clinical Practice Guidelines for Mucositis

Kim Kelly, RN, OCN, Oncology, John Theurer Cancer Center, Hackensack University Medical Center, discusses the analysis that led to the new MASCC/ISOO clinical practice guidelines for managing mucositis, presented in an abstract at the 2012 ONS Annual Congress.

The goal of the research was to find evidence-based guidelines for preventing and treating mucositis. Medline data was used to examine groups of individuals with mucositis, the treatments used, and the efficacy of the treatment. The goal of the research was to create solid guidelines for the prevention, administration, and treatment of patients with mucositis.

The researchers looked for interventions that would help ease pain if mucositis already existed or that could help prevent the occurrence altogether.

The new guidelines support the use of several mouth rinses, including those containing doxepin, benzydamine, and morphine. Additionally, there is support for using transdermal fentanyl, palifermin, oral care protocols, cryotherapy, and patient-controlled analgesia with morphine. However, there was no evidence to recommend the use of several interventions, such as chlorhexidine.

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