Perfil de Pacientes Internados em Unidade de Terapia Intensiva e Fatores Associados ao Desenvolvimento de Mucosite Oral

Abstract

Introduction: The ICU is a hospital sector where care is provided to critically ill patients. The dental surgeon inserted in the team of this unit has a fundamental function of prevention, diagnosis of lesions in the mouth and follow-up of the patient before, during and after the treatments. One of the lesions that can affect the oral cavity is oral mucositis, the development of which has been widely discussed. Objective: To evaluate the profile of patients admitted to the ICU and to identify which factors may be associated with the development of oral mucositis in these patients. Methods: We evaluated 70 patients admitted to an Intensive Care Unit in the city of Natal / RN, to collect data from the medical records and for intra-oral clinical examination. From these data, the association between them and the development of oral mucositis was performed. Results: Of the total sample, only 5 patients had lesions of oral mucositis. 34 (48.6%) patients were females and 36 (51.4%) males, the age range ranged from 24 to 102 years, with the majority of the sample being elderly patients (n = 60, 85 , 7%) whereas the non-elderly group consisted of only 10 patients. Of the 8 patients who received therapeutic laser therapy, only 2 had oral mucositis. The association between oral mucositis and deaths and mucosal alterations presented statistically significant results. Conclusions: It is essential the surgeon-dentist in the ICU to minimize the development of oral mucositis and changes that cause greater morbidity to the patient.