Objective To observe the effects of self-made traditional Chinese medicine oil in prevention of radiation-induced skin injury.

Methods Ninety-nine head and neck neoplasm patients who received radiotherapy were divided randomly into three groups: group A(34 cases), group B(33 cases) and group C(32 cases).Before radiation, group A was treated with self-made traditional Chinese medicine oil directly applied on the exposure field skin.After radiation, such medicine oil was continued to apply for three days at a frequency of three times a day till the end of the radiotherapy; group B was treated with medical radiation protection spray; group C was treated with moisture exposed burn ointment.The methods applied on group B and group C were the same as that of the group A.

Results The incidence rate of radiation-induced skin injury of group A was 14.7%; while the incidence rate was 21.2% for group B and 46.9% for group C.The difference between group A and group B beard no statistical significance(χ²=0.4822, P>0.05); while there were statistically significant differences between group A and group C(χ²＝8.0772, P < 0.01), group B and group C(χ²=4.7786, P < 0.05).

Conclusions The self-made traditional Chinese medicine oil has similar preventive effect to medical radiation protection spray on radiation-induced skin injury and is obviously superior to moisture exposed burn ointment.And self-made traditional Chinese medicine oil is featured by satisfying curative effect, easy operation, convenient handling, etc.Because of the lower price, the self-made traditional Chinese medicine oil is more suitable for application than the medical radiation protection spray.