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Not yet recruitingNCT06623305PBMUpdated Oct 6, 2026

A Clinical Trial of the Administration of Light Therapy to Prevent Mouth Sores in Children With Cancer

An interventional study of Photobiomodulation for prevention arm and Photobiomodulation for exploratory arm in Mucositis Oral, sponsored by Medical College of Wisconsin. Not yet recruiting at 1 site in United States. Open to participants aged Up to 30 Years. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2026-10-06.

Sponsored by Medical College of Wisconsin · Not applicable, Interventional, and Prevention

Updated Oct 6, 2026Start date movedPrimary completion moved+1 moreGo to Updates ↓
Phase
Not applicable
Study type
Interventional
Enrollment
50
Allocation
Randomized
Ages
Up to 30 Years
Sex
All
01

Study summary

The goal of this clinical trial is to learn if light therapy can prevent mouth sores in children with cancer. The main questions it aims to answer are:

Is it reasonable and acceptable to provide light therapy for children with cancer?

Does light therapy prevent mouth sores related to medical treatment?

Researchers will compare children who do not receive light therapy to children who do receive light therapy during the clinical trial to see if light therapy helps to prevent mucositis.

Participants will:

  • Complete a survey.
  • Have picture taken of their mouth to look for mouth sores.
  • Receive light therapy every day while admitted to the hospital on the cancer unit or while admitted to an alternate unit, and continue to receive light therapy in the home setting until they reach 8 days after the start of their chemotherapy cycle.
02

Conditions studied

  • Mucositis Oral

Keywords

  • Photobiomodulation
  • Mucositis
  • Oral Mucositis
03

In context

Stomatitis

306 studies on the registry are indexed under Stomatitis; 75 are open to participants now.

This study's planned enrollment of 50 is below the median of 60 across 276 interventional studies indexed under Stomatitis.

Browse Stomatitis studies →

Lead sponsor

Medical College of Wisconsin is the lead sponsor of 548 studies on the registry; 122 are open to participants now.

Of its 75 completed or terminated interventional studies of FDA-regulated products, 57 (76%) have results posted.

Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.

04

Who can participate

Ages eligible
Up to 30 Years
Sexes eligible
All
Accepts healthy volunteers
No

Go through the criteria one by one — yes, no or not sure — and take the list to your doctor or the study team. Kept in this browser only.

Inclusion criteria

  1. Current and new diagnosis patients consented upon admission if deemed eligible
  2. Ages 0-30
  3. Admitted to CW oncology/BMT inpatient unit, PICU, or West 5
  4. Chemotherapy regimen: Methotrexate ≥5 g/m2 (or ≥1 g/m2 if Trisomy 21) OR Anthracycline ≥60 mg/m2
  5. Able to speak and understand English or Spanish

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion Criteria:

  1. Patients admitted on BMT service
  2. Patients currently experiencing mucositis with a grade 4 oral mucositis or higher
Terms in these criteria, in plain language(1)

Underlined terms in the criteria open these too. Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.

CTCAE grade

The US National Cancer Institute’s scale of how severe an adverse event is — any unwanted medical event during a study, such as a symptom, an illness or an abnormal test result, whether or not a treatment caused it. Whether it did is judged separately.

1
Mild.
2
Moderate.
3
Severe.
4
Life-threatening.
5
Death due to the event.

“Side effects of earlier treatment resolved to grade 1 or less” means they have settled to mild or gone.

05

Study design

Phase
Not applicable
Primary purpose
Prevention
Allocation
Randomized
Intervention model
Parallel assignment
Masking
None (open label)
Enrollment
50 participants (estimated)

Study arms

  • No intervention
    Control Arm

    Prospective data review of patients who did not receive light therapy

  • Active comparator
    Prevention Arm

    Prospective data review of patients who did receive light therapy

    Device: Photobiomodulation for prevention arm

  • Active comparator
    Exploratory Arm

    Prospective review of patients with Trisomy 21 who did receive light therapy

    Device: Photobiomodulation for exploratory arm

Interventions

  • DevicePhotobiomodulation for prevention arm

    Light therapy will be administered using the cluster probe on the external cheeks bilaterally and intraorally using the lollipop probe for patients ≥7 years of age. Patients \<7 years of age will not receive intraoral treatment with the lollipop. Instead, they will be asked to open their mouth while the covered cluster probe is held externally to treat their intraoral membranes. Each treatment (both external cheeks and intraoral buccal region) will be administered over 1 min with a Modulation Frequency 2.5Hz, Skin Conduction nS 001, and Beam Power mW 000, for a total treatment time of 3 minutes. Patients will continue to receive light therapy in the home setting through day +8 of their chemotherapy cycle using the Luminance Device.

    Also known as: PBM, Light therapy

  • DevicePhotobiomodulation for exploratory arm

    Light therapy will be administered using the cluster probe on the external cheeks bilaterally and intraorally using the lollipop probe for patients ≥7 years of age. Patients \<7 years of age will not receive intraoral treatment with the lollipop. Instead, they will be asked to open their mouth while the covered cluster probe is held externally to treat their intraoral membranes. Each treatment (both external cheeks and intraoral buccal region) will be administered over 1 min with a Modulation Frequency 2.5Hz, Skin Conduction nS 001, and Beam Power mW 000, for a total treatment time of 3 minutes. Patients will continue to receive light therapy in the home setting through day +8 of their chemotherapy cycle using the Luminance Device.

    Also known as: PBM, Light therapy

06

What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. Evaluate the feasibility of using PBM in pediatric oncology patients.

    Feasibility of PBM will be assessed by the RN completing a survey using a 5-point Likert scale (5 being strongly agree and 1 being strongly disagree) to evaluate the ease of delivery of PBM therapy. A score of ≥3 indicates that the PBM therapy was feasible.

    Time frame: From date of enrollment until date of last PBM treatment, assessed up to 2 years.

  2. Evaluate the acceptability of using PBM in pediatric oncology patients.

    Acceptability of PBM will be assessed by the patient/caregiver completing a survey using a 5-point Likert scale (5 being strongly agree and 1 being strongly disagree) to evaluate the patient's tolerance of the treatment. A score of ≥3 indicates acceptability of PBM therapy.

    Time frame: From date of enrollment until date of last PBM treatment, assessed up to 2 years.

Secondary outcomes

  1. Evaluate the effectiveness of using PBM in reducing the incidence and severity of mucositis in pediatric oncology patients receiving chemotherapy.

    This will be assessed by the study team through analysis of retrospective and prospective data entered into the electronic health record based on the number of unique patients with the value of "mucositis/stomatitis" in the oral mucosa flowsheet row. Additionally, mucositis onset, severity, and grade will be measured using the CTCAE grading scale and the ChIMES patient/caregiver survey

    Time frame: From date of enrollment until date of last PBM treatment, assessed up to 2 years.

  2. Evaluate the effectiveness of using PBM based on MBI CLABSI rate.

    This will be assessed by the study team through analysis of retrospective and prospective data entered into the electronic health record, defined as the rate of MBI CLABSIs per 1,000 line days.

    Time frame: From date of enrollment until date of last PBM treatment, assessed up to 2 years.

07

Study locations

1 site
  • Medical College of Wisconsin
    Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53226, United States
    • Elissa Shulta, DNP · ContactEShulta@childrenswi.org · 414-266-5407
    • Peter Shaw, MD · Contactpshaw@mcw.edu · 414-955-4086
    • Peter Shaw, MD · Sub investigator
    • Valerie Lohse, MSN · Sub investigator
    • Sarah Joost, MSN · Sub investigator
    • Elissa Shulta, DNP · Principal investigator
    • Meredith Beversdorf, BSN · Sub investigator
    • Amberley Kemic, BSN · Sub investigator
    • Ashley Hain, BSN · Sub investigator
    • Amy Pan, PhD · Sub investigator
08

References and documents

Publications

  • Jacobs S, Baggott C, Agarwal R, Hesser T, Schechter T, Judd P, Tomlinson D, Beyene J, Sung L. Validation of the Children's International Mucositis Evaluation Scale (ChIMES) in paediatric cancer and SCT. Br J Cancer. 2013 Nov 12;109(10):2515-22. doi: 10.1038/bjc.2013.618. Epub 2013 Oct 15. PubMed 24129238 ↗
  • Treister NS, Nieder M, Baggott C, Olson E, Lo T, Jin X, Gao Y, Chen L, Dang H, Sung L. Validation of healthcare professional proxy-reported children's International Mucositis Evaluation Scale. Oral Dis. 2023 Mar;29(2):747-754. doi: 10.1111/odi.13918. Epub 2021 May 26. PubMed 33993618 ↗
  • Rabin KR, Smith J, Kozinetz CA. Myelosuppression and infectious complications in children with Down syndrome and acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Pediatr Blood Cancer. 2012 Apr;58(4):633-5. doi: 10.1002/pbc.23371. Epub 2011 Nov 21. PubMed 22106003 ↗
  • Zadik Y, Arany PR, Fregnani ER, Bossi P, Antunes HS, Bensadoun RJ, Gueiros LA, Majorana A, Nair RG, Ranna V, Tissing WJE, Vaddi A, Lubart R, Migliorati CA, Lalla RV, Cheng KKF, Elad S; Mucositis Study Group of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer/International Society of Oral Oncology (MASCC/ISOO). Systematic review of photobiomodulation for the management of oral mucositis in cancer patients and clinical practice guidelines. Support Care Cancer. 2019 Oct;27(10):3969-3983. doi: 10.1007/s00520-019-04890-2. Epub 2019 Jul 8. PubMed 31286228 ↗
  • Treister NS, London WB, Guo D, Malsch M, Verrill K, Brewer J, Margossian S, Duncan C. A Feasibility Study Evaluating Extraoral Photobiomodulation Therapy for Prevention of Mucositis in Pediatric Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation. Photomed Laser Surg. 2016 Apr;34(4):178-84. doi: 10.1089/pho.2015.4021. Epub 2016 Mar 16. PubMed 26982624 ↗
  • Miranda-Silva W, da Fonseca FP, Gomes AA, Mafra ABB, Rocha V, Fregnani ER. Oral mucositis in paediatric cancer patients undergoing allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation preventively treated with professional dental care and photobiomodulation: Incidence and risk factors. Int J Paediatr Dent. 2022 Mar;32(2):251-263. doi: 10.1111/ipd.12850. Epub 2021 Jul 20. PubMed 34115428 ↗
  • Lima AG, Antequera R, Peres MP, Snitcosky IM, Federico MH, Villar RC. Efficacy of low-level laser therapy and aluminum hydroxide in patients with chemotherapy and radiotherapy-induced oral mucositis. Braz Dent J. 2010;21(3):186-92. doi: 10.1590/s0103-64402010000300002. PubMed 21203698 ↗
  • Heimlich FV, de Arruda JAA, Pereira NM, Faria LDS, Abreu LG, Ferreira MVL, Kakehasi FM, Travassos DV, Silva TA, Mesquita RA. Proposal of a prophylactic photobiomodulation protocol for chemotherapy-induced oral and oropharyngeal mucositis: a randomized clinical trial. Lasers Med Sci. 2023 Oct 27;38(1):245. doi: 10.1007/s10103-023-03916-w. PubMed 37889325 ↗
  • Chaves ME, Araujo AR, Piancastelli AC, Pinotti M. Effects of low-power light therapy on wound healing: LASER x LED. An Bras Dermatol. 2014 Jul-Aug;89(4):616-23. doi: 10.1590/abd1806-4841.20142519. PubMed 25054749 ↗
  • Antunes HS, Herchenhorn D, Small IA, Araujo CMM, Viegas CMP, de Assis Ramos G, Dias FL, Ferreira CG. Long-term survival of a randomized phase III trial of head and neck cancer patients receiving concurrent chemoradiation therapy with or without low-level laser therapy (LLLT) to prevent oral mucositis. Oral Oncol. 2017 Aug;71:11-15. doi: 10.1016/j.oraloncology.2017.05.018. Epub 2017 Jun 3. PubMed 28688677 ↗
  • Cheng KK, Lee V, Li CH, Yuen HL, Epstein JB. Oral mucositis in pediatric and adolescent patients undergoing chemotherapy: the impact of symptoms on quality of life. Support Care Cancer. 2012 Oct;20(10):2335-42. doi: 10.1007/s00520-011-1343-1. Epub 2011 Dec 14. PubMed 22167295 ↗
  • Pritchard M, Ogg SW, Bosi J, Mandrell BN. Utilization of Photobiomodulation for the Prevention and Treatment of Oral Mucositis. J Pediatr Hematol Oncol Nurs. 2024 Mar-Apr;41(2):107-113. doi: 10.1177/27527530231214525. Epub 2024 Feb 20. PubMed 38377968 ↗
  • Hafner D, Hrast P, Tomazevic T, Jazbec J, Kavcic M. Photobiomodulation for Chemotherapy-Induced Oral Mucositis in Pediatric Patients. Biomolecules. 2023 Feb 23;13(3):418. doi: 10.3390/biom13030418. PubMed 36979353 ↗
  • de Farias Gabriel A, Silveira FM, Curra M, Schuch LF, Wagner VP, Martins MAT, da Silveira Matte U, Siebert M, Botton MR, Brunetto AT, Gregianin LJ, Martins MD. Risk factors associated with the development of oral mucositis in pediatric oncology patients: Systematic review and meta-analysis. Oral Dis. 2022 May;28(4):1068-1084. doi: 10.1111/odi.13863. Epub 2021 Apr 9. PubMed 33774891 ↗
  • Berger K, Schopohl D, Bollig A, Strobach D, Rieger C, Rublee D, Ostermann H. Burden of Oral Mucositis: A Systematic Review and Implications for Future Research. Oncol Res Treat. 2018;41(6):399-405. doi: 10.1159/000487085. Epub 2018 May 3. PubMed 29734184 ↗
  • Antunes HS, de Azevedo AM, da Silva Bouzas LF, Adao CA, Pinheiro CT, Mayhe R, Pinheiro LH, Azevedo R, D'Aiuto de Matos V, Rodrigues PC, Small IA, Zangaro RA, Ferreira CG. Low-power laser in the prevention of induced oral mucositis in bone marrow transplantation patients: a randomized trial. Blood. 2007 Mar 1;109(5):2250-5. doi: 10.1182/blood-2006-07-035022. Epub 2006 Oct 19. PubMed 17053058 ↗
  • Alsheyyab F, Al-Momani D, Kasht R, Kamal A, Abusalem D, Al-Qasem W. Impact of severe oral mucositis in pediatric cancer patients on resource utilization and cancer treatment plans. Int J Clin Pharm. 2021 Oct;43(5):1322-1326. doi: 10.1007/s11096-021-01253-y. Epub 2021 Mar 3. PubMed 33660192 ↗

Individual participant data

Plan to share: Undecided

09

Updates

1 registry update since Sep 25, 2026
Start date
Aug 2026→Nov 2026
Oct 6, 2026
Primary completion
Aug 2027→Nov 2027
Oct 6, 2026
Study completion
Sep 2027→Dec 2027
Oct 6, 2026
Show all 1 update
  1. Oct 6, 2026
    Start date Aug 2026→Nov 2026
    Primary completion Aug 2027→Nov 2027
    Study completion Sep 2027→Dec 2027
    + 1 other change: verification date

From the registry record's own update history. This site started tracking changes on Sep 25, 2026; for anything earlier, see the record history on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

10

Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT06623305
Responsible party
Elissa Shulta (Principal Investigator, Medical College of Wisconsin) — Principal investigator
First posted
Oct 2, 2024
Start date
Nov 2026 (estimated)
Primary completion
Nov 2027 (estimated)
Completion
Dec 2027 (estimated)
Last update
Oct 6, 2026

Study contacts

Elissa Shulta, DNP
Contact
EShulta@childrenswi.org
414-266-5407
Peter Shaw, MD
Contact
pshaw@mcw.edu
414-955-4086

Oversight

Data monitoring committee
Yes
FDA-regulated drug
No
FDA-regulated device
Yes
View the source record on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

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