<b>Table </b><b>1</b><b>.1 </b><b>Frequency and percentage distribution</b><b> of </b><b>demographic variables of </b><b>participants</b><b>Table </b><b>1</b><b>.2</b><b> </b><b>Frequency and percentage distribution</b><b> of </b><b>clinical</b><b> </b><b>profile of participants</b><b>Table </b><b>1</b><b>.3</b><b>C</b><b>omparison between efficacy of cryotherapy and normal saline with mucositis grading</b>

The distribution of participants according to the different demographic variables and oral care practices is presented in Table 1.1. Majority of the participants were within the age range above 40 years with a share of 54.1%. The distribution of participants by gender was found to be even with 48.6% males and 51.4% females. Maximum proportion of participants were graduate or above with a share of 58.1%. According to the occupational status, 36.5% were daily wage earners. Majority of the participants brushed their teeth once daily (54.1%). About 3/4th participants used commercial toothpaste for oral care and remaining 1/4th used medicated tooth paste. All the demographic variables didn’t have significant association with Cryotherapy and Normal saline groups. The clinical profile of participants are presented in Table 1.2.Overall,only 29.7%,29.7%,50% had history of smoking, alcoholism and chewing tobacco. Among the study participants, maximum proportions i.e. about 20.3% had CA of lungs. The maximum proportion of participants were in stage II of carcinoma (36.5%). More commonly used drugs were Oxaliplatin, irinotel type of Chemo drug followed by Premetaxil, pamor-zuman (20.3%). About 1/3rd of the participants were diagnosed as CA for more than 9 months. None of the variables in the clinical profile didn’t differ significantly between the two groups. Table 1.3 and Fig. 1.1 furnished comparison of mucositis assessment grading with groups in day 1, 7th day, 14th day and 21st day. The review on 21st day revealed that in comparison to 1st, 7th and 14th day, in cryotherapy group there were 70.3% participants with grade 0 mucositis are found, which is a big jump from 48.6% on day 14. On the other hand, in the normal saline group the corresponding increase was from 18.9% to 27.0% only. There is clear evidence that on day 21, the improvement in mucositis grade was much higher in cryotherapy group than the normal saline group. There was significant association of mucositis grading with the group (p=&lt;0.001) on day 21. The analysis shows the efficacy of cryotherapy in reducing alkylating drug induced mucositis.