Abstract 338P
Background
Mucositis is one of the most common oral complications arising in cancer patients receiving chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy. The pain and distress of mucositis can be enough to cause disability during the course of treatment. Vitamin E has been found to have antioxidant and free radical scavenging properties which can reduce inflammation. To date, vitamin E supplementation in the form of tablets or pastes have been tried with different levels of success in several trials, however, there is no clear recommendation for its use. This study was done to obtain a more precise estimate of the efficacy of vitamin E on radiotherapy and chemotherapy-induced mucositis, in the hopes of providing an easily available, inexpensive but effective treatment for this condition.
Methods
A systematic search of Pubmed, Embase, Cochrane, Clinical trials databases and hand search were utilized to identify randomized controlled trials (RCTs) dated until December 2019, investigating the efficacy of oral or topical vitamin E in reducing oral mucositis in cancer patients receiving chemotherapy or radiotherapy. Using the random effects model, pooled Odds Ratio (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated in measuring the incidence of improvement or resolution of oral mucositis.
Results
Four RCTs were included (N=171). The pooled rate of mucositis resolution was significantly higher in the group treated with Vitamin E (84.7% vs 51.2%), with an odds ratio of 6.04 (95% CI 2.46-14.84, p < 0.0001). Heterogeneity between the studies was minimal (I2 0-20%). Vitamin E was well-tolerated and there were no severe adverse effects reported in the studies.
Conclusions
The results showed that vitamin E (topical or oral) was significantly associated with higher rates of improvement of oral mucositis among solid cancer patients who underwent chemotherapy or radiotherapy. Our results suggest that vitamin E can be considered a simple, non-toxic, yet effective therapy for oral mucositis. Subgroup analysis based on type and dose of vitamin E administration, type of anti-tumor treatment, and type of cancer can be done once with additional studies in the future.
Clinical trial identification
Editorial acknowledgement
Legal entity responsible for the study
The authors.
Funding
Has not received any funding.
Disclosure
All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.
Resources from the same session
424P - Hippocampus sparing in volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT) for brain tumour radiotherapy treatment
Presenter: Eva Yi Wah Cheung
Session: e-Poster Display Session
425P - The impact of obesity on treatment outcomes in patients with solid tumour malignancies treated with first-line (1L) immuno-oncology (IO) agents
Presenter: Chun Loo Gan
Session: e-Poster Display Session
426P - A multicenter, randomized, double-blind, phase II study of lenvatinib (LEN) in patients (pts) with radioiodine-refractory differentiated thyroid cancer (RR-DTC) to evaluate the safety and efficacy of a daily oral starting dose of 18 mg vs 24 mg
Presenter: Marcia S. Brose
Session: e-Poster Display Session
427P - On the clinical implications of systemic and local immune responses in human angiosarcoma
Presenter: Jason Yongsheng Chan
Session: e-Poster Display Session
428P - Prognostic value of clinico-pathological characteristics and peripheral monocyte counts in localised extra-meningeal solitary fibrous tumours treated with surgical resection
Presenter: Ryan Lim
Session: e-Poster Display Session
429P - Demographics, pattern of care, and outcome analysis of malignant melanoma cases from a tertiary care centre in India
Presenter: Anshul Agarwal
Session: e-Poster Display Session
430P - Teenagers and young adult cancers in rural central India: Access to age-appropriate care
Presenter: Runu Sharma
Session: e-Poster Display Session
431P - Quantitative study of two critical lncRNAs in patients with glioma tumours
Presenter: Kamal Mohammadian
Session: e-Poster Display Session
432P - Efficacy and tolerability of vismodegib treatment in locally advanced and metastatic basal cell carcinoma
Presenter: Mustafa Gürbüz
Session: e-Poster Display Session
433P - Association between aspirin and cancer risk: A Mendelian randomization analysis
Presenter: Yu Jiang
Session: e-Poster Display Session