2022     Congratulations to the members of the Mucositis Guidelines Leadership Group! Their guidelines summary paper is acknowledged as a “top cited” paper for 2020-2021 in Cancer journal.

2022     Now available from the Mucositis Study Group, the MASCC/ISOO clinical practice guidelines for the management of mucositis (2019-2020) have been translated into 8 languages: Arabic, French, German, Greek, Japanese, Portuguese (Brazilian), Portuguese (Portugal), and Spanish.

2021    A long-time member, leader, and advocate for MASCC, Ed Rubenstein sadly passed away recently at the age of 63. As well as being instrumental in the development of MASCC’s mucositis and febrile neutropenia guidelines, Ed was also a warm and charismatic person who will be greatly missed by many. Many of our long-time members have shared their remembrances of Ed, his life and his work.

2021    Participate in Oral Mucositis Awareness Day this coming Tuesday, April 6!  This is an advocacy effort in support of Adolescent and Young Adult (AYA) Cancer Awareness Week and in support of Esophageal, Oral, and Head & Neck Cancer Awareness month. Oral Mucositis can take cancer patients by surprise. Many report that when it comes to this side effect, they feel lost, in pain, isolated, unsupported, and on their own. Help raise awareness by posting the Oral Mucositis Awareness Circle on social media, along with Oral Mucositis tips and information - use the tags #MoreThanASore,  #OMAD21,  #OralMucositis. Visit MucositisAwareness.org for more information and to download the Oral Mucositis Awareness Circle.

2020    Updated clinical practice guidelines for managing mucositis, a very common and often debilitating complication of cancer therapy, was recently published with open access in the journal Cancer. Patients experiencing mucositis often require enteral or parenteral nutrition, consume more opioids, and experience more interruptions to cancer therapy than patients who do not experience mucositis.

2019    MASCC’s Mucositis Study Group (MSG) has announced the latest update of the MASCC/ISOO Clinical Practice Guidelines for the Management of Mucositis Secondary to Cancer Therapy. An editorial by MSG Chair Sharon Elad, DMD, MSc, and seven articles have just been published (July 2019) in a Special Section of Supportive Care in Cancer (SCC). This is the first set of papers generated as part of this guideline update and it represents several types of interventions for oral mucositis: anti-inflammatory agents; photobiomodulation; vitamins, minerals, and nutritional supplements; and protocols categorized as basic oral care.

2019    MASCC has initiated two new awards to recognize outstanding work by a MASCC Study Group and an outstanding Study Group Leader. Projects carried out by our Study Groups result in clinical practice guidelines, position papers, publications, and other products that advance supportive care in cancer. Through these new awards, MASCC recognizes excellent work by its Study Groups and the leaders who drive these efforts. The MASCC Mucositis Study Group was named the 2019 Outstanding Study Group, and Mucositis SG Chair Sharon Elad, DMD, MSc, was named the 2019 Outstanding Study Group Leader.

2014    The MASCC/ISOO Clinical Practice Guidelines for the Management of Mucositis Secondary to Cancer Therapy are now included in the National Guideline Clearinghouse™ (NGC). The NGC is a database of evidence-based clinical practice guidelines and related documents, maintained as a public resource by the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), Department of Health and Human Services. Inclusion in the NGC is contingent on meeting rigorous criteria, including evidence of a systematic literature review, systematically developed recommendations for optimal care in specific clinical circumstances, and an assessment of the benefits and harms of recommended care. The NGC carries the latest update of MASCC Mucositis Guidelines, published by Rajesh Lalla et al in Cancer in May, 2014 (open access).

2012    Carolinas HealthCare System (CHS) Receives $8 Million NIH Grant to Conduct First-Ever Study of its Kind. CHS’s Carolinas Medical Center has been awarded an $8 million grant from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) to study dental and oral medicine outcomes of patients who have received high-dose radiation to the head and neck region. This is the largest research grant ever awarded to CHS. As the awardee organization, CHS will administer the grant, which will be shared across the several sites involved in the study. Each year 40,000 Americans develop head and neck cancer, and many have to receive high-dose radiation therapy, often in combination with surgery and/or chemotherapy. An unavoidable side effect of radiation therapy is damage to the oral and maxillofacial tissues, some of which persist for the lifetime of the patient.