Fig. 2

Changes in salivary flow rate and peripheral and oral neutrophils during chemotherapy and correlation of these changes with oral mucositis severity. a, b Salivary flow rate (SFR) in control and cancer subjects. A statistically significant increase in SFR was seen in cancer subjects at V3 and V4 compared to baseline. Also, the linear change (L) in SFR during chemotherapy was significant. c A correlation between the negative quadratic change in OMAS (low, high, low) and the positive linear change in SFR in cancer subjects indicating SFR increased concomitant to or following mucositis. Each data point in the plot represents the change in a subject and was generated by transforming data from each visit according to orthogonal polynomial contrast coefficients followed by aggregation of the data from the four visits. d, e The change in peripheral neutrophils in control and cancer subjects. A statistically significant decrease during chemotherapy was seen at V3 and V4 compared to baseline. Also, the change during chemotherapy modelled with a quadratic polynomial contrast (Q) was significant. f A correlation between the positive quadratic change in peripheral neutrophils (high, low, high) and the positive linear change in OMAS indicating a correlation between neutrophil depletion and mucositis severity. g, h The change in oral neutrophils in control and cancer subjects. A statistically significant decrease was seen at V2 during chemotherapy. i A positive correlation between the linear change in oral neutrophils and mucositis severity. * indicates a p value < 0.05 and ** < 0.01