Abstract

VALICENA, M  and  ESCALONA, LA. Manejo Terapeútico del paciente con Xerostomía. Acta odontol. venez [online]. 2001, vol.39, n.1, pp.70-79. ISSN 0001-6365.

Xerostomia is the most common manifestation of salivary disfunction and consists in a decreasing of salivary secretion. Although, xerostomia is not a disease, it involves alterations directly related to salivary glands or sistemic diseases. The etiology of xerostomia could be associated to: Therapeutic drugs, oncologic therapy (radiation and/or chemotherapy), surgery, psychological alterations, autoimmune disease like Sjögren's Sindrome and Systemic Lupus Erythematosus and others. The saliva importance lies on its elements and how they function in the oral cavity. These functions are affected when salivary flow decreases and impacts on life quality of these patients, producing difficulty to speaking, eating and sleeping. At the clinical examination they could present extensive caries and opportunistic diseases i.e. candidiasis. Therefore, is important to the dentist to recognize this condition doing an appropriate diagnostic of the xerostomic patient, searching its etiology and determining the secretory capacity of the salivary gland, with the purpose of applying the most appropriate treatment for the patient. The purpose of this review is to present a protocol to attend the xerostomic patient, depending of the etiology, and affection degree of the salivary gland.

Keywords : salivary function and treatment; Therapeutic managment of xerostomic patient.