Chemotherapy is a necessary step to treat the majority of cancers, both in adults and in children. But it is not without consequence and the side effects are legion. Some manageable, others cause suffering that adds to the already numerous sufferings suffered by patients. Among them, mucositis, ulcerations in the mouth.
To treat them in the youngest, teams from the Toulouse University Hospital came up with the idea of using a laser. “I have worked with a dentist for a very long time who used it to treat canker sores and mouth sores in adults. A mucositis is the equivalent of a hundred canker sores in the mouth, you can no longer eat or drink, you have to take morphine to reduce the pain. This complicates treatment and can also delay it,” explains Professor Marlène Pasquet, department doctor.
hemato-oncology at the Toulouse Children’s Hospital.
Extended to 18 treatment centers in France
Associated with the pediatric odontology department of the CHU and with the Toulouse conurbation company that manufactures lasers, Biophoton, it has deployed this use with its patients. To unify the protocol to be followed for optimal use of the laser, a study was launched in May 2021 and made it possible to equip other centers with lasers.
Eventually, 406 patients followed in 18 centers in France will be able to benefit from this innovative treatment which lasts a few minutes and is virtually harmless. A leap forward compared to morphine treatments which often have side effects. “All the children who have benefited from this laser know that it relieves and ask us for it. It does not prevent mucositis but pain. The study should allow us to know, for example, whether to use it every day or every other day”, continues Marlène Pasquet who, thanks to this protocol, sees a positive step forward in the fight against childhood cancer, whose international day is February 15.
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