Rebamipide liquid to prevent radiation-induced oral mucositis via attenuation of pro-inflammatory signaling.

e20719 Background: Rebamipide liquid is being studied under clinical phase II trial for the prevention and treatment of oral mucositis in patients receiving chemoradiotherapy for head and neck cancer. In a pilot study, the severity of oral mucositis in oral cancer patients was decreased with rebamipide-treated subjects (Yasuda 2012). However, the underlying mechanisms of rebamipide on the oral mucositis prevention are not fully understood. Recently, we reported that biphasic elevation of pro-inflammatory cytokines was observed during the glossitis development in rats (Nakashima 2013). In this study, we examined further molecular mechanisms of rebamipide focusing on its anti-inflammatory actions using the rat model and human gingival fibroblasts (HGF). Methods: Rebamipide liquid was intraorally administered for 7 days before X-ray irradiation (Day 0), and RNA was extracted from the tongue at 6h after the irradiation to perform a genome-wide expression analysis. The expression data were subjected to a pathw...