Yamashita Hideomi, Nakagawa Keiichi, Nakamura Naoki, Abe Keiko, Asakage Takahiro, Ohmoto Makoto, Okada Shinji, Matsumoto Ichiro, Hosoi Yoshio, Sasano Nakashi, Yamakawa Sen, Ohtomo Kuni
Department of Radiology, University of Tokyo Hospital, Tokyo, Japan.
Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys. 2006 Dec 1;66(5):1422-9. doi: 10.1016/j.ijrobp.2006.08.037. Epub 2006 Nov 2.
Taste loss is a major cause of morbidity in patients undergoing head-and-neck irradiation. The relationship between the time course and the degree of taste disorder was studied in both acute and late phases.
Taste ability was measured by the taste threshold for the four basic tastes using a filter paper disc method in patients before, during, and after radiotherapy. The subjects were divided into two groups. In Group A, the radiation fields included most of the tongue (n = 100), and in Group B the radiation fields did not include the tip of the tongue (n = 18).
In Group A, there was a significant impairment of the threshold of all four basic tastes at 3 weeks after starting radiotherapy (RT), and this impairment remained at 8 weeks (p < 0.05). This was not seen in Group B. In Group A, there was no significant difference in the patterns of taste sensitivity change between the high-dose (>20 Gy) and low-dose (< or =20 Gy) groups. In the late phase, recovery of taste loss was seen in both groups since 4 months after completing RT.
Unless the anterior part of the tongue was irradiated, taste loss was not observed during RT. When the anterior part of the tongue was irradiated, a difference by radiation dose was not observed in the taste loss pattern. Additionally, radiation-induced taste dysfunction appears to be a temporal effect.
味觉丧失是头颈部放疗患者发病的主要原因。研究了急性和晚期味觉障碍的时间进程与程度之间的关系。
在放疗前、放疗期间和放疗后，使用滤纸圆盘法通过四种基本味觉的味觉阈值来测量患者的味觉能力。受试者分为两组。A组的照射野包括大部分舌头（n = 100），B组的照射野不包括舌尖（n = 18）。
在A组中，放疗开始后3周时所有四种基本味觉的阈值均有显著损害，且在8周时这种损害仍然存在（p < 0.05）。B组未出现这种情况。在A组中，高剂量（>20 Gy）和低剂量（≤20 Gy）组之间味觉敏感性变化模式没有显著差异。在晚期，自放疗结束后4个月起两组均出现味觉丧失的恢复。
除非照射舌头前部，放疗期间不会观察到味觉丧失。当照射舌头前部时，在味觉丧失模式上未观察到辐射剂量的差异。此外，辐射诱发的味觉功能障碍似乎是一种暂时的效应。
