LAUSR

Conclusion RT for HNC induced a significant increase in salivary cytokine levels of IL-1β and IL-6 already after 20 Gy. Unlike some recent published results though, this preliminary analysis did not detect any association between the inflammatory marker concentration changes and the most impairing acute toxicities commonly arising throughout the treatment. Of note, collection of saliva during treatment was difficult in many cases and density of saliva collected at T1 was usually high, with this probably impacting the absolute concentration of inflammatory markers. This points out the need to develop protocols for corrections of concentrations for saliva density.