Specific skin changes induced by chemotherapy

The latest statistics showed that the year of 2015 witnessed 4,292,000 new cancer patients arise and 2,814,000 patients would eventually succumb to the disease. Cancer has been the leading cause of death in China and is one of the key issues threatening public health due to its increasing incidence and mortality (1). Apart from being used to treat cancer, chemotherapy also plays a pivotal role in treating blood disorders and some autoimmune diseases. Despite the considerable development of targeted therapy which substantially prolongs the survival of patients, chemotherapy in oncology is nonetheless essential, especially in adjuvant and neoadjuvant therapy (2-4). However, one of the common adverse reactions caused by chemotherapy is skin toxicity though it does not attract sufficient attention as it does not lead to fatal outcomes. These adverse reactions generally display complex and diverse features on the skin of immunocompromised patients, and have a negative impact on these cancer patients, both mentally and physically. The physical presentation of these symptom could reduce the patients’ treatment compliance and living quality (5). Hereby, four case reports regarding the side effects of chemotherapy on skin are presented and the relevant articles are reviewed and discussed