Principal Investigator
Amy Paller, MD
Northwestern University
Overview
Many years ago, we were able to show that dilute bleach baths reduce the severity of pediatric atopic dermatitis. This simple and inexpensive technique is now standard-of-care and has benefitted children worldwide. T. Leung showed that this same concentration of bleach has a direct anti-inflammatory effect on keratinocytes and reduces radiation dermatitis severity in a mouse model. Radiation dermatitis remains an issue for children (and adults) treated with irradiation for cancer. We propose a double-blind study of bleach compresses vs. water to reduce the severity in cancer patients. This study will be a two-site study at Northwestern/Lurie Children’s (Paller, Vivar, Yun, etc) and Harvard/Boston’s Children’s (Huang). We envision starting the compressing 1-week before and continuing daily during the danger period (several weeks). We have joined forces with radiation oncologists at both sites already and hope to recruit approximately equal numbers of patients at both sites. Parallel studies in children and adults will be performed.
Status
Protocol development is underway.
This project received a 2019 PeDRA Study Support Grant to develop a power analysis and the statistical plan for analysis at the end of the study utilizing an in-house statistician at Northwestern University.