Okemos-based Delta Dental recently gave the Beaumont Hospitals Research Institute in Royal Oak a $22,958 grant to study the side effects of chemotherapy and radiation in patients with head and neck cancer.
A common chemo side effect for these patients is oral mucositis, a potentially serious condition that can cause mouth sores, pain and infection. Oral 
mucositis is caused when chemotherapy and radiation treatment damage normal cells in the lining of the mouth.
George Wilson, chief of radiation biology at Beaumont Hospital, says no systematic studies have been done to determine why some people experience oral mucositis and others do not.
“This grant will allow us to collect the primary data we need to seek additional funding from the National Institutes of Health,” Wilson says. “A better understanding of the biology underlying mucositis will help us to devise treatment strategies that maximize the killing of the oral cancer but minimize the damage to the tissues of the mouth.”
Delta Dental gives its Thomas P. Moore II Memorial Grant to organizations that support research or educational programs that focus on oral cancer. Moore, a former member of Delta Dental’s board of directors, died of oral caner in 2005.
Source: Kristin Kovach, Delta Dental
Ivy Hughes, development news editor, can be reached here.
All Photographs © Dave Trumpie
Enjoy this story?
Sign up for free solutions-based reporting in your inbox each week.