Pharmacological attenuation of chemotherapy-induced oral mucositis

Mucositis is a common, dose-limiting complication in patients receiving cancer chemotherapy, which derives from cytotoxic insult to the oral epithelial cell population. White a number of treatments which palliate the symptoms associated with ulcerative mucositis are available, they do not effectively treat the underlying mucosal injury. Recently, therapeutic approaches utitising cytokines to stimulate healing or prevent damage to the oral mucosa have been described. Here we review current progress in reducing the incidence and severity of oral mucositis in cancer patients. The circumvention of oral and gastrointestinal mucositis should allow dose or schedule intensification, with a goat to effect increases in long-term survival in patients with cancers responsive to high-dose or accelerated-cycle chemotherapy.