Development and Validation of a Contouring Guideline for the Taste Bud Bearing Tongue Mucosa

Taste impairment is a nearly ubiquitous patient-reported symptom during radiotherapy (RT) for head and neck cancer (HNC) and can affect appetite and subsequent nutritional status and quality of life [1,2]. Whereas over ninety percent of patients reporting moderate or severe problems tasting food in the acute phase [3], this symptom improves with time after RT for the majority of patients. However, many patients fail to recover the same pre-therapy quality of taste [4]. There is a large variation between individuals not only in the impairment of taste during treatment and post-therapy, but also regarding the degree of taste recovery [4].

Source: Radiotherapy and Oncology - November 17, 2020 Category: Radiology Authors: Sonja Stieb, Abdallah S.R. Mohamed, Renjie He, Lin L. Zhu, Brigid A. McDonald, Kareem Wahid, Lisanne V. van Dijk, Juan Ventura, Sara Ahmed, Lance McCoy, Tanaya S. Deshpande, Stephen Grant, Jay P. Reddy, Jack Phan, Adam S. Garden, David I. Rosenthal, Steve Tags: Original Article Source Type: research