Dental Hygienists’ Awareness of Medication-Related Osteonecrosis of the Jaw in Private Dental Clinics in Japan

Purpose: Medication-related osteonecrosis of the jaw (MRONJ) caused by bisphosphonates (BPs) and denosumab (Dmab) is still a major oral adverse event caused by cancer treatment and may be under-recognized by private dental services. With the aim of reducing the prevalence of MRONJ, this study, which...

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Main Authors: Yosuke Iijima DDS, PhD, Miki Yamada DDS, Mai Amano MS, Saya Watanabe MS, Miki Fujimaru BS, Ayako Uematsu BS, Shunsuke Hino DDS, PhD, Motohiko Sano PhD, Norio Horie DDS, PhD, Hiroshi Sakagami PhD, Takahiro Kaneko DDS, PhD
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: SAGE Publishing 2024-10-01
Series:Gerontology and Geriatric Medicine
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1177/23337214241292794
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Summary:Purpose: Medication-related osteonecrosis of the jaw (MRONJ) caused by bisphosphonates (BPs) and denosumab (Dmab) is still a major oral adverse event caused by cancer treatment and may be under-recognized by private dental services. With the aim of reducing the prevalence of MRONJ, this study, which is a pilot study for a planned future large-scale survey, compared knowledge about MRONJ between dental hygienists (DHs) in private dental clinics and those in cancer center hospitals. Methods: We conducted a questionnaire-based survey regarding MRONJ between 1 November 2023 and 31 January 2024 on DHs at a cancer base hospital and a private clinic in Saitama, Japan. We statistically analyzed the data collected using the χ 2 test or Fisher’s exact test with the level of significance set at 5%. Results: This study included 10 in-hospital and 53 private clinic DHs. The in-hospital DHs had appropriate knowledge of MRONJ. However, compared with the in-hospital DHs, although the private clinic DHs knew that BPs are used for osteoporosis, significantly fewer had knowledge of Dmab ( p  < .001) or knew that BPs and Dmab could also be used to treat cancer (both p  < .001). In addition, few private clinic DHs were aware of MRONJ cases refractory to antibiotic treatment alone ( p  = .012). Conclusion: These findings suggest that private clinic DHs have less knowledge of MRONJ than those in cancer base hospitals.
ISSN:2333-7214