Healing acceleration of oral mucositis induced by 5-fluorouracil with Pistacia atlantica (bene) essential oil in hamsters

BACKGROUND: Oral mucositis is a common debilitating condition in patients with cancer receiving cytotoxic therapies. This study aimed to evaluate the effects of topical administrations of the essential oil extracted from hull of Pistacia atlantica fruit (bene) on healing of oral mucositis in golden hamsters. METHODS: Forty hamsters with oral mucositis induced by 5-fluorouracil administered on days 0, 5 and 10 and buccal mucosal scratching were randomly divided into four equal groups: group 1 received no additional treatment, group 2 received gel base, and groups 3 and 4 received gels containing 5% and 10% oil, respectively. From day 12, after blood sampling of all animals, a half randomly selected fraction of each group (four half groups) received once-daily topical administration of either gel type (gel base, 5% and 10%) or no treatment (control subgroup) over the buccal pouches for 3 days and the remaining halves received the same treatments for 6 days. On each final day 15 and 18, the corresponding subgroups underwent consecutively the repeated blood sampling, mucosal clinical examination and excision for histopathology. RESULTS: Comparisons on macro- and microscopical oral mucositis scorings demonstrated dose-dependent healing promotion in the subgroups receiving active gels (P < 0.05). The blood samplings revealed the chemotherapy-related pancytopenia with no significant difference among all subgroups on either end point (P > 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: The healing effect of the bene oil could mainly be local and attributed to its antioxidants and fatty acid contents present in non-saponified and saponified fractions, respectively.