Influence of Probiotics in Prevention and Treatment of Patients Who Undergo Chemotherapy Or/and Radiotherapy and Suffer from Mucositis, Diarrhoea, Constipation, Nausea and Vomiting

Overview

Journal J Clin Med

Specialty General Medicine

Date 2022 Jun 24

PMID 35743481

Authors

Aleksandra Garczyk

Iwona Kaliciak

Konstanty Drogowski

Paulina Horwat

Stanislaw Kopec

Zuzanna Starega

Pawel Bogdanski

Marta Stelmach-Mardas

Marcin Mardas

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The administration of probiotics to patients treated with chemo- and/or radiotherapy is assumed to be beneficial. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of probiotic intake on the severity of selected gastrointestinal side effects of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. The searched databases included PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus from which twenty-one studies were included. Most of them concerned diarrhoea, however, two of the studies examined constipation, another two nausea and vomiting, and eight of the included studies regarded mucositis. The total number of patients equalled 2621. The time of the conducted therapy, the administered species, neoplasm pathology, and adjuvant therapy varied. The outcome was assessed by gathering information about the statistical significance of the improvements. An enhancement was observed in thirteen studies, where probiotics had a significant impact on each of the included chemo- and/or radiotherapy side effects. However, the heterogeneity of the assessed data makes it impossible to state a firm conclusion.

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