In-situ fast-prepared mucoadhesive oral gel for palliative treatment of chemotherapy-induced mucositis: preparation, characterizations and pre-post study

Oral mucositis is a painful inflammation of mouth and throat mucosal tissues with or without lesions. Chemo and radiotherapy are the two main causes of oral mucositis which can limit nutritional intake of patients and interrupting the treatment. In this study we aimed to prepare the in-situ fast-prepared protective oromuco-adhesive hydrogel film to overcome the mucositis problems through human study in six chemotherapy patients with oral mucositis. The chosen G₂ hydrogel formulation constructed of Carbopol-934 and high-Mw chitosan at weight ratio of 1:0.1 with acceptable gel appearance and proper biotribological properties such as mean mucoadhesive strength of 0.048 mJ/cm² and mean residence time of 2.1 h, showed significant pain-reduction (p-value 0.043) and improvement of swallowng comfort in pre-post study. The hydrogel can be in-situ prepared fast and immediately used to form a protective physical barrier on mouth surface which can efficiently reduce the symptoms in patients with mucositis.