Millennium Magazine

Dry mouth symptoms are often not related to cancer, but in some situations, they can be. The good news is that dry mouth is not an indication that you may have cancer. It cannot cause you to have cancer, either. While that is good news, it is still important to understand what this condition is and how it can be treated. It is just as important to understand how this condition may be related to the cancer you have or may be treating.

How Cancer Causes Dry Mouth Symptoms

In many cases, dry mouth is a side effect of a medication or an underlying condition. This is how it relates to cancer. In short, those who have the condition dry mouth, also known medically as xerostomia, are likely to feel a constant thirst or a dry, cracked mouth and lips. This condition is a side effect often attributed to the treatments used to treat cancer. Consider the follow occurrence of dry mouth in people who are receiving cancer treatment.

• You may experience dry mouth symptoms from the medications used to treat cancer. Specifically, the pain medications, diuretics, pain medications and anti depressants you may be taking may have dry mouth as a side effect.

• Radiation therapy also has dry mouth symptoms as a common side effect. This occurs when the salivary glands are affected by the radiation they are exposed to. If your salivary glands are exposed to radiation, it is quite possible that dry mouth will become a lifelong problem for you. While some function may return over time, it is rare for the salivary glands to completely be restored after exposure.
• Conditions such as a fungal infection in the mouth, like candidiasis or dehydration, can lead to dry mouth symptoms. In this case, it may or may not be associated with your cancer condition.

If you are being treated for cancer or are taking common cancer treatment medications, it is best to consult with your doctor if you begin to experience constant dry mouth symptoms. This is especially necessary in situations where your conditions worsen over time or when they are so severe that the symptoms are causing potential infections from the cracked lips or open sores. In some cases, doctors can offer other medications that do not lead to these painful effects, or may offer a treatment for dry mouth that resolves the problem. Dry mouth symptoms may range from a simple nuisance to a severe problem.

In the 80′s, periodontics has distinguished itself by the advent of new procedures (surface treatment, guided tissue regeneration) and techniques (tunneling, root amputation, hemisection) to defer the maximum loss of Dental body. The origin of the development of these techniques was certainly the difficulties and risks of fixed or removable prosthesis on periodontium reduced. It was therefore necessary to maintain at all costs.
It was not counting on the development of implant techniques, which have led to the replacement of one-time dental body without risk to the adjacent teeth.
The inverted pendulum then why keep when we had a reliable solution to replace lost teeth?
Time and literature, however, have clearly indicated that the restoration implant-span were not free of complications, particularly in patients with periodontal disease.
Meanwhile knowledge about the disease and their treatment modalities have evolved offering new perspectives for the conservation of periodontal damage teeth.

The issue of conservation or extraction was therefore once again found at the center of the debate.

At the time of implant, mobile teeth, those with injuries or endo-periodontal attachment loss and bone loss are they immediately condemned? Should the contrary continue to fight to keep those teeth?

The question is essential and the answer bears heavy consequences. It implies a complex decision-making process that can not simply rest upon dogmatic positions but, on the contrary, requires that a number of criteria be taken into account, including the prognosis for the individual tooth, the nature of the periodontal disease, the patient ‘s motivation, and the overall treatment plan set for this particular patient.
It is necessary in order to integrate the decision-making process into the treatment plan to determine at what moment the decision should be taken, and which precise parameters, in relation to the tooth and to the patient, should be considered to make the decision.
Except in specific situations (low Subgingival fracture, endodontic prognosis), the fundamental decisive parameters in relation to the tooth should be the degree of attachment loss and the degree of bone loss. These parameters however are not sufficient, as the decision to save the tooth must be weighed against the patient’s overall treatment plan, particularly if a prosthetic treatment is required.