A comparison of artificial saliva and chewing gum in the management of xerostomia in patients with advanced cancer

This was a prospective. randomized, open, crossover study comparing a mucin -based artificial saliva (Saliva Orthana(TM)) with a low-tack, sugar-free c hewing gum (Freedent(TM)) in the management of xerostomia in patients with advanced cancer. The conclusions of this study were that both Saliva Orthan a and Freedent are effective in the management of xerostomia in patients wi th advanced cancer. that both Saliva Orthana and Freedent cause some side-e ffects in this group of patients, and that patients with cancer think that chewing gum is an acceptable treatment. Sixty-nine per cent of the patients preferred the chewing gum to the artificial saliva. Furthermore, the chewi ng gum scored better than the artificial saliva on even/measure of efficacy . However. none of these results reached statistical significance.