1. Retrospective study on the predictive factors in chronic trismus
- Author
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Michel Bila, Reinhilde Jacobs, Tomas-Marijn Croonenborghs, Jeroen Van Dessel, Constantinus Politis, and Maximiliaan Smeets
- Subjects
medicine.medical_specialty ,medicine.medical_treatment ,Logistic regression ,Trismus ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Internal medicine ,medicine ,Humans ,Retrospective Studies ,T classification ,Mouth ,business.industry ,Retrospective cohort study ,030206 dentistry ,University hospital ,Radiation therapy ,Otorhinolaryngology ,Head and Neck Neoplasms ,030220 oncology & carcinogenesis ,Carcinoma, Squamous Cell ,Oral and maxillofacial surgery ,Surgery ,Oral Surgery ,medicine.symptom ,business ,After treatment - Abstract
Trismus is one of the most debilitating and treatment-resistant complications resulting from head and neck oncological treatments. The objective of this study was to assess how primary tumour variables could assist in predicting chronic trismus. From a (retrospective) oncological database (Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, University Hospitals Leuven), tumour-related, surgical, and oral functional variables were reviewed. Contributing factors for chronic trismus, defined as a mouth opening of less than 35 mm, at least one year after treatment for oral squamous cell cancer, were assessed via logistic regression. A mediational analysis was conducted on the significant predictive variables. Thirteen out of 52 patients were observed to have chronic trismus. A significantly higher prevalence of trismus was found for increasing clinical T classification (p0.01), tumours based in the maxilla or the retromolar trigone (p = 0.04), after adjuvant radiotherapy (p = 0.04), and/or with masticatory muscle tumour invasion (p ≤ 0.02). Furthermore, radiotherapy significantly impacted T classification in chronic trismus, while T classification was significantly related to masticatory muscle invasion. Although radiotherapy and clinical T classification are well-established risk factors for postoperative trismus, masticatory muscle invasion should be considered as one of the main predictive factors.
- Published
- 2022
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