Prevention of oral mucositis in cancer patients treated with chemotherapy or radiotherapy

Abstract

The Medline, Embase and CINAHL databases were used to source studies, along with the reference lists of identified articles. Studies were restricted to randomised controlled trials (RCT), written in English, where the outcome of mucositis was recorded using the World Health Organization score or the NCI-CTC (National Cancer Institute-Common Toxicity Criteria) score, the absence or presence of ulcerations, or the presence or absence of grades 3 and 4 mucositis. A total of 45 studies was included in a meta-analysis. When the included studies showed heterogeneity regarding the effect estimates, the results of the meta-analyses were based on the random-effects models; otherwise, the results were based on the fixed-effects models. The search yielded 109 publications, 45 articles being included in the meta-analyses. These evaluated eight different interventions: local application of chlorhexidine; iseganan; PTA (polymyxin E, tobramycine and amphotericin B); granulocyte macrophage-colony-stimulating factor/ granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF/ G-CSF); oral cooling; sucralfate and glutamine; and systemic administration of amifostine and GM-CSF/G-CSF. Four interventions showed a significant preventive effect on the development or severity of oral mucositis: PTA [odds ratio (OR), 0.61; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.39-0.96]; GM-CSF (OR, 0.53; 95% CI, 0.33-0.87); oral cooling (OR, 0.3; 95% CI, 0.16-0.56); and amifostine (OR, 0.37; 95% CI, 0.15-0.89). From current data, it can be concluded that no single intervention is capable of completely preventing oral mucositis. Future studies should evaluate a combination of interventions for the prevention of oral mucositis. In contrast, novel therapies could be developed that will improve outcomes and be used as single agents.