A Systematic Review on the Role of Topical Corticosteroids for the Management of Radiation Dermatitis

Abstract

Background: Radiation dermatitis (RD) is a widespread complication of radiation therapy; however, there is still no agreement on the best treatment. The goal of this review is to go over how corticosteroids work throughout the treatment of radiation dermatitis. Methodology: A comprehensive evaluation of randomized controlled trials, retrospective and prospective studies involving topical corticosteroid (TC) for the treatment of radiation dermatitis. A thorough search was carried out in Medline, Embase, the Cochrane library, Clinical trials.gov, and Google scholar. The original search took place in August and was updated on September 2021. There were no restrictions on terminology or dates. Two reviewers independently examined each of the listed papers. A search of the relevant studies of all of the mentioned publications yielded additional papers. Results: We identified 19 studies on the role of corticosteroids for the prevention of radiation therapy. All the papers were published between 2001 and 2021. The total sample size of the included studies was 1974 with a mean sample size of 103.89. Among the included studies, four studies (21.05 %) represented head and neck cancer, 14 studies (73.68 %) were regarding breast cancer and 1 (5.26 %) hospital-based cross-sectional study represented multiple malignancies such as head and neck, breast and cervix carcinoma, respectively. Among all the participants, 1696 (85.91 %) were females while 278 (14.08 %) were males. Conclusion: Prophylactic treatment with TC was found to minimize the rate of RD and wet desquamation. Participants who used topical steroids reported improved symptoms and a higher quality of life, whereas the use of topical steroids during radiation had few side effects. ARD can be prevented using topical corticosteroids, based on these findings. As a result, further research must be done on the most effective TC to utilize during radiation.