Partnership between the Faculty of Dental Medicine and the Rui Osório de Castro Foundation brings oral health to children undergoing cancer treatment
A collaboration between the Faculty of Dental Medicine at Universidade Católica Portuguesa and the Rui Osório de Castro Foundation has led to the development of information leaflets on Oral Mucositis, a common side effect of chemotherapy and radiotherapy in paediatric patients.
The information, available at the national Paediatric Oncology Reference Centres, aims to explain what Oral Mucositis is and the care that should be taken in these cases, in three different versions with language adapted to children, adolescents and their carers.
The work was developed by Ricardo Braguês, a Biomedical Sciences undergraduate student, and professors Raquel Silva, from the Faculty of Dental Medicine and the Centre for Interdisciplinary Health Research at the Universidade Católica Portuguesa, and Patrícia Correia, currently at the Universidade Fernando Pessoa.
In Portugal, around 400 children/young people are diagnosed with this condition every year, and they will now have access to these information leaflets. Already available in hospitals, the leaflets are distributed ‘as part of an information kit offered to the families of diagnosed patients, so it is hoped that the information will reach not only the child/young person and their parents/carers,’ but also other family members, explains Raquel.
‘The leaflets can even be shared by the children themselves with friends, schoolmates and teachers, especially in the case of the children's leaflet, in which the precautions to be taken in the event of Oral Mucositis are presented in a playful way, like in the Glory Game,’ the researcher adds.