Effectiveness of povidone- iodine (2%) vs normal saline (0.9%) mouth rinsing on oral mucositis among patients receiving external radiation therapy for head and neck malignancy

A study to assess the effectiveness of povidone –iodine (2%) vs normal saline (0.9%) mouth rinsing on oral mucositis among patients receiving external radiation therapy for head and neck malignancy from Devaki Cancer and Research Centre at Madurai. The research design adopted for the study was quasi experimental pretest, post test two group design. The simple random sampling technique was used by lottery method to select the 30 samples for experimental group- I and 30 samples for experimental group- II, who fulfilled the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The experimental group- I was receiving 10 ml of povidone –iodine (2%) mouth rinsing for two times for continuous 14 days. The experimental group- II was treated with 20 ml of normal saline (0.9%) mouth rinsing two times a day for continuous 14 days after receiving routine mouth care . The oral mucositis status was assessed by using oral mucositis assessment scale (OMAS) for experimental group- I and experimental group- II on 7th and 14th day. Collected data were analyzed in terms of both descriptive and inferential statistics. A probability of 0.05%). There was no association between the pre test oral mucositis score of experimental group I with demographic variables such as age, sex, education, occupation, marital status, history of smoking, betel nut chewing and pan or kutka chewing. Both mouth rinses which were used in this study were found to be effective. Among this povidone- iodine (2%) is found to be superior in reducing oral mucositis in subjects who has received radiation therapy when compared to normal saline mouth rinse.