New technology for preventive cooling therapy against oral mucositis

Important results from the project

Regarding the long-term project goal of strongly reducing the presence of oral mucositis as an adverse effect of chemotherapy treatment we have made important progress. Today´s method of cooling with ice has a very poor compliance. Even though our prototype is far from optimal, all test subjects so far who have tested it and ice prefer air cooling. Our results show that air can replace ice as standard treatment for the prevention and easement of mucositis. Air cools in a patient friendly matter without decreased cooling effect.

Expected long term effects

A cooling unit to be used together with a mouth piece has been developed. 20 minutes of cooling with 8-degree air gives an average cooling of the oral cavity with 9.4°C. Ice treatment for 20 minutes gives an average decrease of 10.7°C. Simulations show that cooling with 10-degree air gives a decrease with 15°C and 12°C respectively in the palate and buccal cavity where the air flow is the greatest. This shows that with a better mouth piece with regards to air distribution, it should be possible to get the same cooling effect with air as with ice.

Approach and implementation

So far, a cooling unit and several different mouth pieces have been developed. The work to develop an optimal mouth piece with regards to efficient air distribution and being comfortable for a majority of the patients will go on for an extensive period of time. Ethical approval to test the current mouth piece on a larger group of test subjects has been granted. The study will be heavily focused on making sure the product fulfills our concept of control-comfort-distraction.