Author of

• 13803

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  P1.11 - Poster Session/ Palliative and Supportive Care (ID 229)

  • Event: WCLC 2015
  • Type: Poster
  • Track: Palliative and Supportive Care
  • Presentations: 1
  • Moderators:
  • Coordinates: 9/07/2015, 09:30 - 17:00, Exhibit Hall (Hall B+C)

  • 13814

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    P1.11-011 - Taste Disorder in Patients with Thoracic Malignancy Who Received Chemotherapy (ID 1322)

    09:30 - 09:30  |  Author(s): Y. Suzuki
    • Abstract

    Background:
    Recent development of novel cancer treatments have enabled patients to have prolonged survival; however, some patients cannot receive benefits from those effective therapies because of severe adverse effects. One of the major adverse effects that are recognized by medical staff in patients who undergo chemotherapy is taste disorder, although little is known about how to treat it. To overcome this problem, accumulating fundamental data, such as incidence rate and timing of taste disorder in cancer patients who have undergone chemotherapy, is necessary. With this in mind, we attempted to collect the data regarding taste disorder in patients with thoracic malignancy after initiation of chemotherapy as a pilot study, in order to determine the primary endpoint for subsequent intervention studies.
    
    Methods:
    All eligible patients had treatment-naive non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) or malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) with ECOG performance status (PS) 0-2, and underwent chemotherapy. Written informed consent was obtained from all participants. We prospectively investigated the incidence rate and timing of taste disorder in these patients using the following two methods: i) analysis of gustatory threshold for salty taste using a sodium-impregnated test strip (SALSAVE, Advantec Toyo Co. Ltd., Tokyo, Japan); and ii) analysis of responses of a questionnaire which asked about the patient’s appetite, the timing of each taste change (sweet, salty, sour, and bitter taste), the presence of a taste in the mouth without eating any food, changes in sense of smell, tolerability against taste disorder, and the condition of the mouth and stomach after each cycle (1-4 cycles) of chemotherapy. This study was registered with the University Hospital Medical Information Network Clinical Trials Registry, identification number UMIN00007879, and approved by the Institutional Review Board of our institution.
    
    Results:
    From June 2012 to August 2014, 36 pts were enrolled. The average age was 64.5 years (range: 37-83); male/female=29/7 (81/19%); ECOG PS 0/1/2=20/12/1 (56/33/3%); NSCLC/SCLC/MPM=25/8/3 (69/22/8%), clinical stage IIIA/IIIB/IV/adjuvant of lung cancer =2/6/23/2 (6/18/70/6%), and IMIG stage III/IV of MPM=2/1. Chemotherapy regimens were as follows; cisplatin/carboplatin/pemetrexed/etoposide/ paclitaxel/others=18/14/16/8/3/7. There was a trend of increased threshold for salty taste detected by a test strip after one or two cycles of chemotherapy (p=0.10, each). Questionnaire analysis demonstrated that patients felt changes in taste after two or three cycles of chemotherapy (p=0.04, 0.005, respectively), felt changes in their sense of smell after one to three cycles (p=0.04, 0.002, 0.001, respectively), and had a reduced sensitivity to salty tastes after three cycles (p=0.02).
    
    Conclusion:
    These results suggest that using a salt test strip may detect salty taste disorder earlier than analysis of the patient’s subjective symptoms as answered in a questionnaire. The questionnaire evidently demonstrated taste disorder from various aspects in patients with thoracic malignancy receiving chemotherapy, and thus intervention using novel drugs is necessary. Further accumulation of such data is definitely warranted for further studies.