What Researchers Did
Researchers in South India conducted a clinical trial comparing irradiation plus bleomycin (BLM) with irradiation plus BLM plus hyperbaric oxygen (HbO) and irradiation plus placebo plus HbO for oral carcinoma.
What They Found
A previous trial showed that irradiation combined with bleomycin (BLM) was highly superior to irradiation alone for buccal mucosal squamous cell carcinomas, but still had a 30% failure rate. Unexpectedly, in the current trial, the combination of irradiation, BLM, and hyperbaric oxygen (HbO) was found to be inferior to irradiation plus BLM alone.
What This Means for Canadian Patients
This study suggests that adding hyperbaric oxygen to a treatment regimen of irradiation and bleomycin for oral carcinoma may not improve outcomes and could even be detrimental. Therefore, Canadian patients receiving similar treatments should be aware that this specific triple combination was found to be less effective than irradiation plus bleomycin alone.
Canadian Relevance
This study was conducted in South India and has no direct Canadian connection.
Study Limitations
A limitation of this study is that the reasons for the unexpected inferiority of the triple combination therapy were not fully elucidated within the report.