What are risk factors for oral mucositis?
Cancer treatments are a primary cause of oral mucositis, especially radiation therapy and chemotherapy. There is an increasing trend of combining chemotherapy with radiation to treat head and neck cancer in hopes that the combined therapy will result in better cancer response rates. However, as a result, OM rates in these patients can go as high as 98%.5 According to a literature review of more than 6,000 patients, the incidence of OM was greater in the patients who received radiation or a combination of radiation with chemotherapy.
