Mucositis is a threatening complication of chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy. To evaluate the prophylactic effect of sucralfate on adriamycin induced mucositis in the rat for the basis of application of sucralfate in cnacer patients, the experiments were performed.

In preliminary study 250 ~ 300gm Sprague Dawley rats were injected 10mg/kg of adriamycin intraperitoneally and 4 rats were dissected every other day till 12 days.

The sucralfate were applied per os with aqueous portion of 100mg/kg and 50 mg/kg just after intraperitoneal injection of adriamycin 10mg/kg. On Day 10, 4 rats on each group were dissected and oral, esophageal and gastric mucosa were obtained and histologocally examined.

On day 10, adriamycin induced mucositis was most severe. The application of sucralfate significantly lessened the adriamycin induced mucositis was most severe. The application of sucralfate significantly lessened the adriamycin induced mucositis compared to that of control without sucralfate on the dose of 100mg/kg or 50mg/kg, respectively. And there was no adverse effect by sucralfate itself.

Oral sucralfate could prevent the adriamycin induced mucositis in the rats without any adverse effect. This result supports that sucralfate can be used in the clinical trials on chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy induced mucositis for prophylaxis.