Research Article
Efficacy of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Xerostomia and Quality of Life during Radiotherapy for Head and Neck Cancer: A Prospective Pilot Study
Table 3
Acute radiotherapy-induced toxicity.
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Radiation toxicities were measured according to the RTOG acute radiation morbidity scoring criteria. Fisher’s exact test was used to compare differences for distribution of severity for each post-RT finding between groups at visit 4 and visit 7. The number of patients with no or mild changes during the first week of RT (grade 0/1 at visit 1) was selected as the baseline for comparison. Grade 0/1 indicates no/mild change and grade 2/3 indicates moderate/severe change at visit 4 and visit 7 compared with baseline. There was no significant difference in radiation doses between groups for patients involved in the analysis. There was an inconsistency of patient numbers in the assessment of mucositis because of missing data. Inpatients (TCM group) had a lower proportion of moderate/severe change in severity of xerostomia compared with outpatients (control group) ( and 0.0495, resp.). . |