Oral stomatitis and mTOR inhibitors. A complete analysis of 21225 cases reported in literature

Traditional treatment of malignancies with chemotherapeutic agents is often affected by the damages inflicted on normal, healthy cells. Toxicities of the oral cavity, such as mucositis and stomatitis, are some of the most significant and unavoidable toxicities associated with anticancer therapies. For these reasons, everyone hoped in the newer targeted agents and their minor effects on normal, healthy cells. Unfortunately, targeted anti- cancer therapy can still cause significant toxicity to non-cancer cells. mTOR inhibitors have some adverse events, such as hyperglycemia, hyperlipidemia, hypophosphatemia, hematologic toxicities and mucocutaneous eruption, but the most important are still stomatitis and skin rash, often reported as dose-limiting side effect.