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
Review
. 2023 Dec 24;16(1):99.
doi: 10.3390/cancers16010099.

Antitumoral Agent-Induced Constipation: A Systematic Review

Agnès Calsina-Berna  1   2   3 , Jesús González-Barboteo  3   4 , Silvia Llorens-Torromé  3   4 , Joaquim Julià-Torras  2   5
Affiliations
Review

Antitumoral Agent-Induced Constipation: A Systematic Review

Agnès Calsina-Berna et al. Cancers (Basel). .

Abstract

Background: Constipation is a common symptom in patients receiving antitumoral treatment. The mechanisms underlying antitumoral agent-induced constipation (ATAIC) are poorly defined. This systematic review aimed to analyze and synthesize the available information related to the prevalence, etiology, and treatment of ATAIC.

Methods: A systematic review following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines was conducted. The review included human studies written in English, French, or Spanish involving patients with cancer and containing information about the prevalence, etiology, and treatment of ATAIC.

Results: A total of 73 articles were included. The reported prevalence ranged from 0.8% to 86.6%. Six studies reported an ATAIC prevalence of over 50%. The prevalence rates of constipation of grades 3 and 4 ranged between 0 and 11%. The importance of enteric neuronal integrity in gastrointestinal function was reported. The articles with the highest levels of evidence in relation to ATAIC treatment obtained in this systematic review studied treatments with acupuncture, sweet potato, osteopath, probiotics, and moxibustion.

Conclusions: The prevalence of constipation in patients undergoing antitumoral treatment is very diverse. Studies specifically designed to report the prevalence of antineoplastic treatment-induced constipation are needed. The importance of enteric neuronal integrity in gastrointestinal function was described. Thus, neuroprotection could be an area of research for the treatment of chemotherapy-induced gastrointestinal disorders.

Keywords: antineoplastic agents; constipation; neoplasms.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis flow diagram of study selection.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Yamagishi A., Morita T., Miyashita M., Kimura F. Symptom prevalence and longitudinal follow-up in cancer outpatients receiving chemotherapy. J. Pain Symptom Manag. 2009;37:823–830. doi: 10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2008.04.015. - DOI - PubMed
    1. McQuade R.M., Stojanovska V., Abalo R., Bornstein J.C., Nurgali K. Chemotherapy-induced constipation and diarrhea: Pathophysiology, current and emerging treatments. Front. Pharmacol. 2016;7:414. doi: 10.3389/fphar.2016.00414. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Karlekar M., Almhanna K., Guyer D. Palliative care in colorectal and anal malignancies from diagnosis to death. Ann. Palliat. Med. 2023;12:1382–1395. doi: 10.21037/apm-22-1390. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Forootan M., Bagheri N., Darvishi M. Chronic constipation. Medicine. 2018;97:e10631. doi: 10.1097/MD.0000000000010631. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Yang Y., Zhang L. A narrative review of tropisetron and palonosetron for the control of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting. Chin. Clin. Oncol. 2020;9:17. doi: 10.21037/cco.2019.11.02. - DOI - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources