Oral glutamine in the prevention of fluorouracil induced intestinal toxicity: a double blind, placebo controlled, randomised trial

What this study found

Oral glutamine reduced chemotherapy-related impairment of intestinal absorption and permeability and showed a protective effect on the intestinal mucosa. In the glutamine arm, the before-after change was smaller than placebo for D-xylose (p=0.02), mannitol (p=0.02), and cellobiose/mannitol ratio (p=0.04), while cellobiose alone was not different (p=0.60). Diarrhoea severity also trended lower overall (AUC p=0.09), and loperamide use was lower with glutamine (0.4 (1.1) vs 2.6 (3.5); p=0.002). Glutamine did not prevent stomatitis, and nausea, vomiting, and haematological toxicity were similar…

Study & population

Double blind, placebo-controlled, randomized trial in chemotherapy-naive adults with colorectal cancer scheduled to receive 5-fluorouracil with folinic acid in adjuvant or advanced/metastatic settings.

Intervention

The active intervention was oral glutamine 18 g/day, given as six 3 g sachets dissolved in water and taken as two sachets three times daily.

Key limitation

The analyzed sample was small, with only 29 glutamine and 33 placebo participants, and the number randomized was not stated.

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