Assessment of Chewing Function after Surgery in Oral Tumor Patients

Objectives: Eating, which includes chewing and swallowing, is an oral function that influences quality of life. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the chewing function after surgery in oral tumor patients using a gummy jelly (GC, Japan) and a color-changeable chewing gum (LOTTE, Japan).

Methods: Fifty-eight dento-maxillary prostheses wearers after surgery for oral tumors (37 males and 21 females, mean age 69.5 years) participated as the subjects in this study. Data on masticatory performance were measured by a gummy jelly, a color-changeable chewing gum and a food intake questionnaire with 35 foods listings. To quantify the masticatory performance, glucose extraction for a gummy jelly and the CIE-L*a*b* color system for a chewing gum were used. The questionnaire was assessed with masticatory score. The correlations between glucose extraction, a*, DE and masticatory score were analyzed by Pearson's correlation coefficient.

Results: The means of masticatory performance were 185.5mg/dl (SD 68.3) for gummy jelly, and a* = 17.7 (SD 10.6) and DE = 43.1 (SD 13.7) for chewing gum. The mean of masticatory score was 74.4 (SD 19.7) points.  There were significant correlations between each masticatory performance and masticatory score in this study (P < 0.0001). Each Pearson r is 0.6543 (a*), 0.6731 (DE) and 0.6192 (masticatory score) for gummy jelly.

Conclusion: These results suggest that the gummy jelly, the chewing gum and the questionnaire with 35 foods listings can be useful for the clinical assessment on the chair-side of chewing function after surgery in oral tumor patients. However, glossectomy patients who tongue movements were not good showed some deviated points in a scatter diagram between gummy jelly and a* in chewing gum. This result suggested that some glossectomy patients have problems in their mixing ability represented by chewing gum, not chewing ability by gummy jelly.