[Preventive effects of oren-gedoku-to on mucositis caused by anticancer agents in patients with acute leukemia].

Most anticancer agents frequently cause mucositis, such as stomatitis and gastrointestinal mucosal injury, which is closely associated with decrease in quality of life, infections and discontinuation of chemotherapy in patients with malignancy. We retrospectively evaluated the preventive effect of oral administration of oren-gedoku-to on stomatitis and diarrhea induced by cytotoxic drugs in 40 patients with acute leukemia. Incidence of stomatitis was 27.9% in the group given oren-gedoku-to, which was significantly lower compared with 71.6% in those who received a gargle consisting of allopurinol, sodium gualenate, and povidone-iodine. Drug-induced diarrhea was observed in 9.3% of the oren-gedoku-to group compared with 31.7% of the control group. These observations indicate a significant preventive effect of oren-gedoku-to on mucositis caused by anticancer agents.