Oral microbial profile in oral cancer patients before and after radiation therapy in a cancer care center - A prospective study.

BACKGROUND

Head and neck cancer is the sixth most common cancer reported worldwide. In many cases, the level of aggressiveness of therapy adopted in cancer patients may cause the alteration in oral microbiota; the emergence of potential pathogens may cause opportunistic infections in already immune-compromised individuals leading to increases in morbidity and mortality. Hence, this study was conducted to assess the oral microbial profile in oral cancer patients before and after radiotherapy.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

A total of 145 oral swabs were collected before radiotherapy ( = 96), 3 months postradiotherapy ( = 25), 6 months postradiotherapy ( = 12) and controls ( = 12). The samples were inoculated into brain-heart infusion broth and later in different media for bacterial isolation. The isolates were subjected to phenotypic characterization by automatic identification system.

RESULTS

Among the 96 samples studied from the preradiotherapy patient samples, species ( = 28) were the predominant isolate, followed by species ( = 16), species ( = 6) and Enterococcus species ( = 6). Of the 25 samples studied 3 months after radiotherapy, ( = 4) was isolated and 12 samples studied after 6 months of radiotherapy species ( = 4) and species ( = 3) were isolated. Among the control group ( = 12) screened, ( = 3) is the predominant bacteria isolated.

CONCLUSION

High prevalence of sp. was found in patients of oral cancer before radiotherapy, while and species and species are the significant pathogens isolated in postradiotherapy cancer patients.