The Use of Photobiomodulation in the Management of Radiodermatitis in Patients in Palliative Care. A Prospective Study.

It is estimated that there will be 670,000 new cases of cancer worldwide in 2020-2022 and it is known that the most commonly instituted treatments in cancer are chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery. However, these treatments have undesirable side effects, such as Radiodermatitis after Radiotherapy (RD). In fact, the prevalence of possible side effects after radiotherapy is estimated to be 80 to 90%. Radiotherapy complications are associated with a negative impact on patients' quality of life and few supportive measures are available for such complications. Thus, the management of these side effects has been studied in the literature until the present day. On the other hand, Photobiomodulation (PBM) has an important role in wound repair and tissue regeneration, as it influences the different phases of lesion resolution, including the inflammatory phase, the proliferative phase and the remodeling phase. Thus, the aim of this study is to report a case series of Cancer Patients diagnosed with radiotherapy-induced acute radiodermatitis on Palliative Care, treated with PBM. This is a case series report and the study data will be extracted from the medical records of forty cancer patients with grade 2 or 3 RD followed up from September 2023 at the Laser Therapy Outpatient Clinic in a Universitary Hospital. The outcomes are the size of the lesion, the presence of pain assessed by the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS), the Portuguese Version of WHOQOL BREF Scale and the RTOG Scale (Radiation Therapy Oncology Group Scale) to assess the degree of Radiodermatitis before and after PBM therapy. The data will be subjected to a statistical analysis and will be discussed. Data with positive or negative results will be reported.