Dental attendance in bone marrow transplants: clinical and economic impact / O atendimento odontológico no transplante de medula óssea: impacto clínico e econômico

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2010

RESUMO

Oral mucositis is one of the main and most debilitating complications of Bone Marrow Transplants. In this therapy its incidence ranges between 75-100%. The extent and severity of Oral Mucositis are significantly correlated with the days of receiving injectable narcotics, parenteral feeding, fever, and risk of important infection, number of days of hospitalization, hospital costs and mortality. This study is a retrospective clinical and economic evaluation of patients submitted to bone marrow transplant at the "Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein", between the years 2000 and 2008. A total of 167 patients were evaluated, and were divided into two groups: Group I, composed of 91 patients who received dental treatment and Laser therapy during the BMT and Group II, composed of 76 patients who did not receive dental attendance or laser therapy. Data such as age, sex, diagnosis of the underlying disease, chemotherapy protocol, type of transplant, use of pain relief medication, days of fever, use of parenteral feeding, days of hospitalization, presence of infection and degree of oral mucositis, with and without dental attendance were collected and analyzed. A descriptive analysis, based on Frequency tables and Chi-square tests (or Fishers exact test, when this was shown to be more appropriate), was performed with the aim of verifying the statistical association among the variables of interest. Estimates of relative risks, with confidence intervals of 95% were calculated to evaluate the association between the outcome (maximum degree) and the explicative variables of interest and the mean time of hospitalization (in days) in the different groups and types of transplants was compared by means of an analysis of variance model. p- Values lower than 0.05 were considered statistically significant. By means of this study, it could be concluded that the extent and severity of Oral Mucositis were greater in the group without Dental attendance, as the risk of the patient in this group presenting Grade III or IV was 13 times higher than it was in the group attended by a Dentist. Moreover, it was observed that dental attendance during BMT, when performed in the manner described in this study, is cost-effective, as it is capable of reducing the clinical morbidities of BMT. Furthermore the benefits of dental attendance outweighed the costs, and therefore, must be adopted. It was also found that patients that were followed-up by the Dentist presented a better quality of life during BMT and that dental attendance during BMT resulted in savings for the hospital.

ASSUNTO(S)

cost-utility transplante de medula Óssea atendimento odontológico cost-minimization custo- minimização mucosite oral custo-efetividade custo-utilidade dental attendance oral mucositis cost- effectiveness cost-benefit custo-benefício bone marrow transplant

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