Head and Neck Cancer Patient's Radiation-induced Oral and Temporomandibular Joint Complications: A Review

Abstract

Aims: This study describes complications that transpired inside the mouth and the temporomandibular joint (TMJ) after radiotherapy treatment in individuals with cancer of the head and neck. Materials and Methods: The PubMed database of the United States National Library of Medicine and ProQuest were used as electronic databases of articles published from 2012 to 2022 by using keywords "radiotherapy-induced oral complication,""radiotherapy induced temporomandibular joint disorders,"and "complication post-radiotherapy for head and neck cancer (HNC) patient."Articles were filtered after eliminating duplicates, reading the abstract and the full text. Results: There were 7.735 selected articles. A quick search by title resulted in 347 relevant articles. The search continued based on abstracts and 240 articles were found. Finally, 35 full-text articles were obtained that met the criteria and were approved by all reviewers. Conclusion: One of the therapeutic choices for patients with HNC is radiation therapy. Besides having advantages, it can also cause complications in oral and TMJ. The complications include radiation caries, dysphagia, osteoradionecrosis, gustatory disturbances, parotid damage, hyposalivation, xerostomia, nasopharyngeal ulcer, oral candidiasis, periodontal changes, mucous inflammation, pain in the mouth, temporomandibular disorders, and quality of life with health in the oral region. The type of complications is closely according to the kind of cancer, location, and staging; as well as related also to the treatment modality, radiation technique, and oral health maintenance.