Treatment of Capecitabine-Induced Hand-Foot Syndrome Using MEBO: A Case Report

Introduction: Handfoot syndrome is a side effect of Capecitabine chemotherapy. It highly effects the quality of patients’ life due to the pain and swelling of the hand and foot. Previous studies had proven Moist Exposed Burn Ointment (MEBO) as an ideal regiment for several skin pathologies. Here, we report 8 cases of grade II and III hand foot syndrome treated with topical MEBO.

Case Report: Eight (8) cases of grade II and III hand foot syndrome have been reported. On these patients, symptoms generally occurred after 2 until 3 months after capecitabine administration. Topical MEBOs were used twice a day for 3 months, pain reduction was achieved with no capicetabine dose interruption and reduction during chemotherapy period. The patients had grade III of HFS during capecitabine therapy on the 3rd month after the initial treatment, with the usage of topical MEBOs, capecitabine doses and chemotherapy cycle could be maintained.

Discussion: Despite the strategies to prevent HFS, the appearance of the symptoms was still consistent in patients who achieved Capecitabine. The goal of HFS treatment due to chemotherapy is toreduce the symptoms, maintaining the life quality of chemotherapy patients without reducing the dose or changing/stopping the regiments. MEBO had shown a promising result on several meta-analysis studies.

Conclussion: Regarding the treatment of chemotherapy related toHFS, MEBO is one of the main treatments of choice due to its cooling, moisturizing, and healing effects. It had been proved in a a meta-analysis study regarding the treatment of skin burn. MEBO had shown to reduce severe pruritus and local skin pain due to its antibacterial, analgesic, and anti-inflammatory effect.