Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Feb;53(1):51-57.
doi: 10.55730/1300-0144.5557. Epub 2023 Feb 22.

An experimental study: the effect of S. boulardii on abemaciclibinduced diarrhea

İbrahim Ethem Cakcak  1 , Yusuf Emre Aytın  1 , Sezin Sayın  2 , Ahmet Küçükarda  3 , Ali Gökyer  3 , İvo Gökmen  3 , Erkan Özcan  3 , Selçuk Korkmaz  4 , Ebru Taştekin  5 , İrfan Çiçin  3
Affiliations

An experimental study: the effect of S. boulardii on abemaciclibinduced diarrhea

İbrahim Ethem Cakcak et al. Turk J Med Sci. 2023 Feb.

Abstract

Background: In our study, we aimed to investigate the protective effects of Saccharomyces boulardii on abemaciclib-induced diarrhea model, which is a commonly used drug in breast cancer.

Methods: Thirty rats were divided into 3 groups as control (Group 1), abemaciclib (Group 2), and abemaciclib + Saccharomyces boulardii (Group 3) groups. The clinical status, body weight, and defecation status were monitored daily. At the end of the 15-day experiment period, the rats were killed with high-dose anesthesia and the resected small intestine segments were evaluated histopathologically. Lesions were classified according to thickening of the villus, inflammation and edema of mucosa and intraepithelial leukocyte accumulation. Then, mean values of both crypt depths and villi thicknesses were calculated for each rat. Normal distribution assumption was controlled with the Shapiro-Wilk test. One-way analysis of variance for normally distributed variables in the comparisons of more than two independent groups and Kruskal-Wallis test for nonnormally distributed variables were used. The significance value was accepted as 0.05.

Results: : There was one death in Group 3, but none in the others. There were no findings of mucositis in Group I. There was mild diarrhea and weight loss in only one rat in Group 1. For the comparison of the severity of diarrhea (72.5%/39%) and weight loss (72.5%/45%), a decrease was found in Group 3 according to Group 2 (p < 0.01). Histopathological findings such as edema, inflammation, and intraepithelial leukocyte accumulation also showed a decrease in Group 3 compared to Group 2 (p < 0.01).

Discussion: Saccharomyces boulardii should be considered as a treatment option in abaemaciclib (chemotherapy)-induced diarrhea. Further comparative studies and in vivo human randomized controlled studies can be conducted in the future.

Keywords: Breast cancer; Saccharomyces boulardii; abemaciclib; diarrhea.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The Comparison of control and experimental groups according to villus height and cryot depth.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The comparison of control and experimental groups according to severity of weight loss, edema, ILA (intraepithelial leucocyte accumulation), diarrhea and inflammation. Group 1: Control Group, Group 2: Abemaciclib Group, Group 3: Abemaciclib + Saccharomyces Group.
Figure 3
Figure 3
A. Group 1. Intestine of the control group with normal histology, without any inflammation, edema, thickening, orin the mucosal villi (HEX200), B. Group 2. Rats receiving abemaciclib alone showing severe mucosal inflammation (arrow) and thickening in the mucosal villi, and C. Rats receiving abemaciclib and Saccharomyces boulardii showing scant inflammation (arrow) with minimal thickening of the villi (HE X200).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Siegel RL, Miller KD, Fuchs HE, Jemal A. Cancer Statistics, 2021. CA: a cancer journal for clinicians. 2021;71(1):7–33. doi: 10.3322/caac.21654. - DOI - PubMed
    1. DeSantis CE, Ma J, Gaudet MM, Newman LA, Miller KD, et al. Breast cancer statistics, 2019. CA: a cancer journal for clinicians. 2019;69(6):438–451. doi: 10.3322/caac.21583. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Finn RS, Crown JP, Lang I, Boer K, Bondarenko IM, et al. The cyclin-dependent kinase 4/6 inhibitor palbociclib in combination with letrozole versus letrozole alone as first-line treatment of oestrogen receptor-positive, HER2-negative, advanced breast cancer (PALOMA-1/TRIO-18): a randomised phase 2 study. The Lancet Oncology. 2015;16(1):25–35. doi: 10.1016/S1470-2045(14)71159-3. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Hortobagyi GN, Stemmer SM, Burris HA, Yap YS, Sonke GS, et al. Ribociclib as First-Line Therapy for HR-Positive, Advanced Breast Cancer. The New England journal of medicine. 2016;375(18):1738–1748. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa1609709. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Dickler MN, Tolaney SM, Rugo HS, Cortés J, Diéras V, et al. MONARCH 1, A Phase II Study of Abemaciclib, a CDK4 and CDK6 Inhibitor, as a Single Agent, in Patients with Refractory HR+/HER2− Metastatic Breast Cancer. Clinical cancer research: an official journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. 2017;23(17):5218–5224. doi: 10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-17-0754. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources