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Review
. 2022 Jun 14;11(12):3412.
doi: 10.3390/jcm11123412.

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

Aleksandra Garczyk  1 , Iwona Kaliciak  1 , Konstanty Drogowski  1 , Paulina Horwat  1 , Stanisław Kopeć  1 , Zuzanna Staręga  1 , Paweł Bogdański  1 , Marta Stelmach-Mardas  1 , Marcin Mardas  2
Affiliations
Review

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

Aleksandra Garczyk et al. J Clin Med. .

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.

Keywords: chemotherapy; constipation; diarrhoea; mucositis; nausea; probiotics; radiotherapy; vomiting.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flow chart of the database searches on influence of probiotics on radio- and chemotherapy side effects.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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