Prophylactic Treatment for Oral Candidiasis

In each group, chemotherapy and the induction of oral mucositis were carried out as previously described by Katagiri et al. [1 (link)], and inoculation with Candida albicans was performed as described by Takakura et al. [9 (link)]. Briefly, for chemotherapy, 7 mg/kg cisplatin on day 1 and 10 mg/kg 5-fluorouracil on days 1, 2, 3, and 4 were intraperitoneally injected into the mice. For C. albicans inoculation, 5.0 × 10⁶ cells/25 µL of the ATCC 48130 strain were orally administered at day 2, 3, and 5 of chemotherapy. Prophylactic treatment in Groups A, B, and C was performed on days 3, 4, and 5 (Figure 1). In Group A, the mouth was carefully cleaned with sterile cotton and saline until no removable stains remained in the entire mouth. In Group B, 2% miconazole gel was administrated orally at 60 mg/kg with sterile cotton (Mochida Pharmaceutical, Tokyo, Japan). In Group C, fluconazole 1 mg/mL (Pfizer, Tokyo, Japan) was administrated intravenously at 0.52 mg/kg. All mice were sacrificed on day 6 with a lethal dose of general anesthesia. At the same time, a blood sample for culture and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was taken from the cardiac apex without any contamination.