Patients diagnosed with head and neck cancer who receive radiation therapy with and without chemotherapy develop altered sense of taste due to treatment effect, which typically arises in the second week of radiation therapy and progresses throughout the course of treatment. While some symptoms such as pain, mucositis, and xerostomia can be managed with pain medications and saliva replacements, taste alteration has an earlier onset and is a more difficult symptom to readily address and intervene upon. There are no effective established interventions for taste, although this is a major issue in the patient experience. The investigator will be examining they hypothesis that a miracle fruit cube would yield the greatest benefit to improve taste dysfunction in the beginning half of radiation treatment when taste function is decreased but not absent.
Head and Neck Cancer, Taste Dysfunction
Patients diagnosed with head and neck cancer who receive radiation therapy with and without chemotherapy develop altered sense of taste due to treatment effect, which typically arises in the second week of radiation therapy and progresses throughout the course of treatment. While some symptoms such as pain, mucositis, and xerostomia can be managed with pain medications and saliva replacements, taste alteration has an earlier onset and is a more difficult symptom to readily address and intervene upon. There are no effective established interventions for taste, although this is a major issue in the patient experience. The investigator will be examining they hypothesis that a miracle fruit cube would yield the greatest benefit to improve taste dysfunction in the beginning half of radiation treatment when taste function is decreased but not absent.
Addressing Taste Dysfunction With Miraculin in Head and Neck Cancer Patients Receiving Radiation Therapy
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University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California, United States, 94143
Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.
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18 Years to
ALL
No
University of California, San Francisco,
Sue Yom, MD, PhD, PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR, University of California, San Francisco
2026-04-30