A COMPARISON OF ARTIFICIAL SALIVA AND PILOCARPINE IN THE MANAGEMENT OF XEROSTOMIA IN PATIENTS WITH ADVANCED CANCER

This was a crossover study comparing a mucin-based artificial saliva ( Saliva Orthana (TM)) and pilocarpine hydrochloride (Salagen (TM)) in t he management of xerostomia in patients with advanced cancer. The pilo carpine was found to be more effective than the artificial saliva in t erms of mean change in visual analogue scale scores for xerostomia (P = 0.003). Furthermore, more patients reported that it had helped their xerostomia, and more patients wanted to continue with it after the st udy. However, the pilocarpine was found to be associated with more sid e-effects than the artificial saliva (P < 0.001). These side-effects w ere usually reported as being mild. Of the patients who used both trea tments, 50% preferred the artificial saliva, and 50% preferred the pil ocarpine. The commonest reason for preferring the artificial saliva wa s the fact that it was a spray, rather than a tablet.