Childhood cancer: in Toulouse, the laser to fight against canker sores, adverse effects of chemo
To limit the very painful side effects of sideburns in children, the Toulouse University Hospital is piloting a study to establish a national laser care protocol. The goal is to relieve them from oral inflammation such as canker sores which can prevent them from eating and force medical teams to temporarily stop treatment.
In children with cancerous tumors treated by fertilization, oropharyngeal mucositis (complications of the oral mucosa that cause the equivalent of a “field of mouth ulcers” in the mouth) are commonplace. Indeed favored which attack the cancerous cells, destroy with the passage all the cells of the organization which develop them also quickly. Thus the hair falls and the oral mucous membranes, in permanent renewal, are destroyed.
“These very painful inflammations appear in a few days and are treated with local symptomatic treatments (mouthwashes), analgesics and in the most severe cases with morphine”, describes Professor Marlène Pasquet who is leading the study at the University Hospital. (university hospital center) of Toulouse, But the young patients then struggle to eat and weaken to the point of sometimes seeing their treatment temporarily stopped. »
Accompaniment of the laser in care
These side effects also result in underprivileged adults. But unlike children, the curative application of low-power laser is part of their routine management regimen.
“For children, no uniform protocol exists until now, the centers applied a laser session once or twice a day, or every other day, or not at all…” describes the doctor.
Creating a national protocol is the objective of the randomized study CURALASE01 transmitted in May 2021 within the hematology-oncology department of the children’s hospital and labeled by the French society for childhood cancers (SFCE ). “We do an extra-oral scan with the red light from the laser and then instruct them to open their mouths to apply to the painful lesions. Half of the cohort will benefit from the laser every other day, the other half every day. Next May, an interim analysis will be carried out to measure the impact of the laser on the progression of pain and the size of mouth ulcers and to validate whether one of the two protocols gives the best results. If the differences are not yet noticeable, the study will continue. The objective is to eventually include 406 children in 18 centers in France. To date, 26 patients are being followed (including 6 in Toulouse).