Efficacy of probiotics in the treatment of oral mucositis in head and neck cancer patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis

To assess the effect of probiotics in oral mucositis induced by chemotherapy or radiotherapy on patients with head and neck cancer (HNC). The PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, Clinical trials were screened from January 2010 to April 2024. Randomized clinical trials (RCTs) comparing the efficacy of probiotics in treatment of oral mucositis in HNC were eligible. Outcomes of interest were incidence of oral mucositis and severe oral mucositis. The PROSPERO registration number was 42 022 384 685. The Cochrane risk-of-bias tool (RoB2) was used to assess methodological quality of studies and GRADE criteria (GRADEpro) was applied for rating the certainty of evidence. Meta-analysis was performed by using RevMan 5.4. A total of eight RCTs comprising 691 patients with HNC were included in this meta-analysis. Probiotics administration significantly reduced the incidence of SOM (RR = 0.60, 95%CI: 0.46–0.78, P = 0.0002). However, it showed no distinct advantage in reducing the overall incidence of oral mucositis (RR = 0.88, 95%CI: 0.76–1.02, P = 0.08). Subgroup analysis found more benefit for reducing SOM in multi-bacterial treated group (RR = 0.35, 95%CI: 0.17–0.73, P = 0.005) than mono-bacterial treated group (RR = 0.69, 95%CI: 0.58–0.82, P < 0.0001). In Addition, probiotics could reduce the incidence of SOM in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) treated with intensity-modulated radiotherapy (RR = 0.43, 95%CI: 0.26–0.70, P = 0.0006). Probiotics reduced the incidence of SOM caused by chemotherapy or radiotherapy for HNC. The multi-bacterial combination therapy was more efficacious than the mono-bacterial therapy. Moreover, probiotics also reduced the incidence of SOM in nasopharyngeal carcinoma. However, the advantage of probiotics had not been established in the overall incidence of OM.