I know our dental oncologist at Hopkins, who is well-known for his expertise in the effects of radiation on the mouth, teeth, and salivary glands, once told us: "In the old days we used to extract teeth before radiation but now we restore teeth beforehand and have had few problems. I will pull no tooth without due cause!"

My husband had had periodontal disease in the past, and had a mouth full of fillings, crowns and a bridge. The dentist onc examined his teeth carefully, looked at his xrays, and pronounced them "good to go!" Of course he had a set of fluoride trays made and Barry used them throughout treatment, as well as maintaining strict oral hygiene then and afterwards. He uses these trays every night.

Barry sees his local dentist 4x a year for cleaning, is extraordinarily careful about flossing and brushing, chews xylitol gum after eating, and sees the dental onc twice a year. In two years he has had two tiny fillings, and an old crown replaced and other than that, everything is still good to go!

I agree with Dr. Mike that tooth extraction may well not be necessary, depends on whether this is just their "standard operating procedure" in which case it is a bit out-dated or whether they do carefully evaluate everyone on a case-by-case basis and your teeth, unfortunately, just do not make the grade.

Anyway, I would ask about this...

Gail