Dental Care Measures for Alleviating Oral Symptoms in Patients with Cancer Undergoing Oral Chemotherapy: A Scoping Review Protocol

Chemotherapy-related oral side effects such as xerostomia, dysgeusia and oral pain can occur during or soon after treatment in patients with cancer. With the right guidelines, a structured approach and proper training for dental specialists, we can significantly improve the management of oral symptoms and enhance the overall oral health of patients. This scoping review aims to map and assess the dental care interventions to improve symptoms related to the oral cavity in patients with cancer receiving oral chemotherapy. The updated methodological guidance by JBI will be followed for this scoping review. This review will consider quantitative studies on the oral care interventions available to improve symptoms related to the oral cavity in patients with any type of cancer aged 18 years or older receiving oral chemotherapy. MEDLINE (PubMed), EMBASE, CINAHL (EBSCOhost), Scopus, Cochrane and Google Scholar searches will be conducted by two reviewers who will independently screen the articles in two stages and extract the data. The third reviewer will resolve the disagreements between reviewers. Studies in English published from the beginning to the present will be considered. The piloted data extraction process to gather relevant information from the selected studies will be used. The results will be presented using narrative synthesis, and the reporting will be done according to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses - Scoping Review guidelines. Our review aims to synthesise interventions designed to improve the symptoms related to the oral cavity in patients undergoing oral chemotherapy. This will be the first review to consolidate information from several databases on this topic.