Pulp Vitality in Patients with Intraoral and Oropharyngeal Malignant Tumors Undergoing Radiation Therapy Assessed by Pulse Oximetry

The Effect of Radiotherapy on Dental Pulp Status in Patients With Head and Neck Cancer: A Systematic Review.

“…In the included articles, the age of the patients were from 40-74 years old without mentioning the prevalence of patient's sex in 4 studies, one study (7) didn't mention the sex included in the study, only one study (6) showed the prevalence of male patients. The races of population in this study were in Indian (7) and Brazilian people (3,4,6,8). Thus, that finding recommends doing clinical studies on more races of population.…”

“…However, there are few data in the literature to confirm or refuse this claim. The diagnosis of pulp vitality is highly important because changes can develop into processes that may involve the periradicular tissues and predispose patients to developing osteoradionecrosis (4).Thus the present systematic review was performed to evaluate clinically the effect of radiation dose on dental pulp status.…”

“…But only one study by Garg et al 2015 (7) showed that no tooth (0%) responded to pulp sensitivity testing after 4-5 months of RT. It must be put in mind that this study ( 7) was performed only on maxillay and posterior teeth posterior teeth, while the other studies (3,4,6,8) included only maxillary and mandibular anterior teeth, and one study (5) included maxillary and mandibular teeth without mentioning the type. The difference in the results of the study done by Garg et al 2015 (7) and the other studies (3,4,6,8) could be explained due to the difference in the type of teeth included; The enamel and dentin thickness and number of roots differ between the anterior and posterior teeth (15) , which 560 could affect the pulp response to sensitivity tests (16), also the radiation exposure affect on the pulp differs according to the teeth type.…”

“…Radiation side effects are mucositis, loss of taste, xerostomia, dental caries, fungal and bacterial infections, osteoradionecrosis, difficulty in speech and mastication, periodontal disease, fibrosis of soft tissues, trismus, endarteritis, hyperpigmentation of the skin surface in the field of radiation, transient hair loss, and loss of pulpal vitality. A decrease in pulp vascularity has been noted with radiotherapy (3)(4)(5)(6)(7). The determination of pulp vitality is an important step to assess the health or pathology of the pulp.…”

“…However, little is known about the direct effects of radiation on pulp status, only a few previous studies attempted to investigate the direct effects of radiation on the dental pulp, some of which revealed significant loss of pulp vitality after RT (3,(5)(6)(7). Others revealed no significant loss of pulp vitality after RT (4,8). Hence, there is great diversity of results when it comes to the ability of radiation to directly affect the dental pulp components and to further impair pulp vascularization and innervation, leading to clinically detectable teeth sensitivity changes to thermal and electrical stimulus, it also causes changes in the levels of oxygen saturation (3,(5)(6)(7).…”