Topical treatments to reduce severity of radiation dermatitis in breast cancer patients-a systematic review

Breast cancer (BC) patients are likely to undergo radiotherapy (RT) treatment which may lead to the development of the skin toxicity, radiodermatitis (RD). The purpose of this systematic review is to evaluate the effectiveness of topical interventions in reducing the severity of RD in females BC patients. Appropriate clinical studies were independently identified through a bibliographic search in PubMed and clinicaltrials.gov. Nine randomised, controlled clinical trials (RCTs) which stated a clear inclusion and exclusion criteria, were included in this review. The studies included in this review were conducted in the last 10 years and researched the effectiveness of only topical therapies on female BC patients. The severity of RD starting at baseline 0 to endpoint was measured using the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) scale, and results show most patients experienced a RTOG score change of 0-1 or 0-2. A significant relationship between results obtained from 0-1 and 0-2 was shown (p < 0.00001). Results suggest Radioskin 1&2 cream is the most effective topical treatment for RD as 95% of patients experienced a RTOG score change of 0-1 compared to 5% experiencing 0-2. However, controlled treatments like general care and Aqua Cream seem to be the least effective, as 1.9% of patients administrating general care experienced a RTOG score change of 0-1 compared to 41.9% experiencing 0-2.