Scoping review on the treatment of radiodermatitis secondary to radiotherapy treatment of head and neck, and breast cancer

Purpose : Almost 95% of patients undergoing radiotherapy treatments will develop a form of radiodermatitis. Despite this prevalence, treatment recommendations lack consensus, and clinical practices differ. The purpose of this scoping review is to examine the literature for radiodermatitis treatment options occurring in persons with head and neck, as well as breast, cancer and to report the pain felt by these populations after receiving radiotherapy. Methods : A scoping review based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA_Sc-R) checklist was performed. To identify the sources of evidence, the MEDLINE, CINAHL, Cochrane, LiSSA and Google Scholar databases were searched. All available articles published in the French and English languages were included. Results : Two hundred fifty-five studies met the inclusion criteria. The included studies demonstrated heterogeneous results, owing to significant variations in the interventions, the controls and the assessment tools. The quality of the evidence was found to be low and at high risk for biases. Conclusion : This scoping review provides a broad overview of the available data and highlights the paucity of highquality evidence to guide therapeutic interventions for the optimal management of radiodermatitis. Since radiodermatitis is a common injury of radiotherapy for breast cancer and head and neck cancer, more research is needed to guide the prevention and treatment of radiodermatitis for patients suffering from this complication