Immunonutrition hope? Oral nutritional supplement on cancer treatment

To determine the efficacy and safety of antitumoral nutritional supplement (Oncoxin^® ), and to describe its mechanism of action.

Scoping review according to the recommendations of the Joanna Briggs Institute included patients older than 18 years who have any kind of tumour and receive Oncoxin^® as a supplement regarding the efficacy in terms of antitumoral properties, quality of life and survival, safety in terms of adverse events, and the mechanism of action. With no limit for language or setting, MEDLINE (Pubmed), EMBASE (Scopus), LILACS and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) were searched from database inception to May 2021.

A promising increment of survival and quality of life in terms of Karnofsky and EORTC scales. Regarding the mechanism of action, studies suggest that it modifies inflammatory mediators' expression, as evidenced by the reduction of COX-2, IL-1β, IL-6, TNF-α, IL-1β, IL-12 and IFN-γ. Besides, it promotes an arrest in the progression of cells from G1 into S, along with an increase in p27 and a decrease in cyclin D1 and pRb. It decreases the levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines, it can also decrease cytokines with antitumor activity such as IFN-γ, which should be further explored in larger trials and the long term.

Current literature shows promising complementary effects of oral supplements to the standard treatment of cancer patients in diverse scenarios. It might help patients to deal with toxicities and adverse effects related to cancer treatment and improve their nutritional or clinical profiles.