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Oropharyngeal mucositis is a clinically significant and painful complication of an intensive chemotherapy or head and neck radiotherapy. The management of a patient in risk of this complication must include appropriate and generally recommended prophylactic measures. An effective and safe treatment must be offered to patients who have developed oropharyngeal mucositis. The basic care involves local mouthwashes, sprays or viscous gels with variable effect on pain reduction. In more serious cases, tramadol and morphine are the drugs of choice; transdermal fentanyl or buprenorphine can be considered as an alternative. Pain management must be individualized.

The paper summarizes current knowledge on the diseases of the oral cavity that may be related to diabetes mellitus. It draws the attention to the symptoms that signify potential association between the oral cavity disease and so far undiagnosed diabetes. Attention is paid to a connection between type 2 diabetes and periodontitis, as it is known that diabetes mellitus may contribute to the development of periodontitis, although a reciprocal link also exists and decompensated diabetes may be improved when periodontitis is cured.

Food allergy is an immune mediated unwanted side effect to food. All types of hypersensitivity can be involved; the most prevalent is IgE mediated one. The diagnosis is based on the history, skin tests with allergens and detection of specific IgE. These procedures are not highly predictive for clinical reactivity to food allergens, true clinical reactivity can be confirmed by allergen challenge. Oral allergy syndrome is represented by mostly subjective symptoms in oral cavity, usually triggered by fruit or vegetable allergens, cross-reacting with pollen allergens. This cross-reactivity is based on protein homology and immunologic similarity. To confirm the diagnosis of food allergy, the ,,golden standard" is the double blind placebo controlled food challenge. The basic features of this test are discussed, particularly in the diagnosis of the oral allergy syndrome. Controlled food challenge is a useful test for patient's diagnosis confirmation, evaluation of other diagnostic tests or evaluation of food allergenicity.

Affections in the oral cavity are important clinical markers of HIV infection and may, in fact, be the first clinical manifestation of undiagnosed HIV positivity. These affections include infections, tumours, conditions caused by direct HIV activity, as well as adverse side-affects of antiretroviral and other antimicrobial drugs. The paper lists disorders of the mouth that can complicate HIV infection and manifestations of HIV infection in the oral cavity. Accompanied by photographs of the oral cavity of patients treated at the Dept of infectious diseases.

The authors describe a case of nosocomial myiasis of cavities caused by larvae of the fly Lucilia sericata (Meigen 1926), in a patient hospitalized at the resuscitation unit after a motor car accident where he suffered fractures of the skull and other injuries. On the fourth day in hospital in the nasal and oral cavity of the patient larvae of the 1st and 2nd instar of the mentioned species were detected. The ova were laid in hospital. L. sericata is the most frequent causal agent of tissue, cavity, ocular and urogenital human myiasis in Central Europe. In Czechoslovakia so far seven cases were recorded, incl. three nosocomial ones. Myiases usually attack immobile, injured or severely ill people in summer. It is important to draw attention to the hazard of myiases under exceptional conditions.

The authors draws attention to the possible use of acupuncture in stomatology used in the course of 13 years in diseases of polyaetiological nature or where the aetiology is not well known. They demonstrate the success of this therapeutic method in diseases such as glossodynia, stomatodynia, primary neuralgia of the trigreminal nerve, contractures of the jaws, myofacial dysfunctional syndrome and disorders of salivary secretion in 178 patients treated at the out-patient department of the Second Stomatological Clinic in Bratislava.

Following examination numbers are presented as provided during 3 years in aged: 253 subjects from the homes for elderly, 151 patients from the medical institution for longterm states and 80 aged subjects living in their homes. The mentioned screening was aimed to ascertain the stomatological findings, the need in dentistry examination, its availability in both geriatric and outgeriatric elderly. Partial problems have been worked out as 8 separate studies. In aging people from geriatric institutions, the following conditions were evaluated: the state of jaw denture, its functional capacity, mortality of separate groups of teeth, oral mucosa state, level of oral hygiene and its impact on the finding of yeast in carriers of prostheses, salivatory changes and disturbances of the temporal joint. The main stomatological findings and the use of dental examination have been compared between the group allocated at homes for elderly and that living in domestic conditions. The prerequisites of dental care were ascertained using inventories at geriatric institutions of East Bohemian region.

The authors debugged and launched into routine operation an automated monitoring system using computer techniques. Working off-line, they monitored microbiological, immunologic and biochemical parameters of mechanical irrigation of the mouth and selective decontamination of the gastro-intestinal tract. They ran and classified the data concerned into two index-sequence subsets defined on a set of patients treated with artificial pulmonary ventilation and patients with reduced defenses, and/or corticoid-dependent patients with myasthenia gravis. At present, they study basic sets, representative enough to permit the statistically significant examination of all the parameters under study as well as their exact interpretation with regard to the efficiency of the therapeutical strategy chosen.