Clinical evaluation of oral Candida in cancer chemotherapy patients.

No overt clinical oral candidiasis was noted upon either direct oral examination or review of medical records. No significant change in percent of Candida species as compared to other populations is seen in this study. Varying percents of individual species do differ from other reports. Alimentary and digestive tract tumors represented over 56% of the primary malignancies. There was a significant correlation between decrease in salivary pH and increase in percent of Candida species growth. Most significantly, however, the preliminary data in this study might eventually contribute to continuing investigation of Candida species in human cancer patients.