Measuring tools for gastrointestinal toxicity.
OBJECTIVE
The present review is timely owing to the previous paucity of biomarkers, particularly functional noninvasive tests, to evaluate the extent and severity of gastrointestinal toxicity in both animal models of chemotherapy and in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.


RESULTS
The most recent findings using noninvasive functional biomarkers now allow longitudinal monitoring of the time course of damage and repair that occurs in the gastrointestinal tract following radiotherapy and chemotherapy. This monitoring has in turn enabled collection of objective evidence for efficacy of new antimucositis agents using animal models and, more importantly, for use in future randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trials.


CONCLUSIONS
In the past 12 months the C sucrose breath test has been applied to a series of animal models of chemotherapeutic damage, showing rapid monitoring of the efficacy of particular bioactive molecules is now possible at different stages of the damage and repair cycle. This biomarker has also been applied to childhood cancer studies of mucositis and now needs to be used in adult cancers for eventual adoption in routine clinical management of mucositis. An exciting possibility would be extension of the biomarker use to predict damage in other regions of the gastrointestinal tract, including oral mucosa.
Butler
Ross N
RN
Centre for Paediatric and Adolescent Gastroenterology, Women's and Children's Hospital, Children Youth and Women's Health Service, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia. ross.butler@adelaide.edu.au
D000818:Animals; D000970:Antineoplastic Agents / Q000009:adverse effects*; D015415:Biomarkers / Q000378:metabolism; D001944:Breath Tests; D005767:Gastrointestinal Diseases / Q000139:chemically induced / Q000209:etiology*; D005770:Gastrointestinal Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000532:radiotherapy; D041981:Gastrointestinal Tract / Q000187:drug effects*; D006801:Humans; D010539:Permeability / Q000187:drug effects; D011878:Radiotherapy / Q000009:adverse effects*
D000970:Antineoplastic Agents; D015415:Biomarkers