Functional Recovery After Chemotherapy- and Radiotherapy-Induced Gastrointestinal Injury: Mechanisms, Clinical Assessment, and Management

Description

Kun Ju, Yuanli Shan, and Limin Pan propose a recovery-oriented framework for the injury caused by cancer treatment in a 2026 review. Chemotherapy and radiotherapy wound the tract, producing diarrhea, pain, urgency, bleeding, and poor intake. Most patients improve when treatment ends, but some have bowel dysfunction that erodes nutrition, life, and the ability to tolerate therapy. The labels, toxicity, mucositis, enteritis, describe damage rather than recovery.

The framework grades recovery across four domains: the gut's structure, its barrier integrity, clinical function, and the patient's burden. Against those yardsticks the review walks the spectrum from acute to chronic injury, examines why recovery fails, and surveys how clinicians assess and manage patients. Tools include biomarker-guided monitoring, microbiome-directed treatments, organoids grown from patient tissue, and regenerative therapies. Today's care, the authors note, remains supportive and symptom-chasing, and their model aims to make recovery the managed target.

Catalog record

Source: https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC13220833