Mina Motallebnejad - Professor, Department of Oral Medicine, Dental School, Babol University of Medical Sciences, Babol, Iran
Tahere Molania - Assistant Professor, Department of Oral Medicine, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Sari, Iran
Ali Akbar Moghadamnia - Professor, Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine, Babol University of Medical Sciences, Babol, Iran
Mahdi Pouramir - Professor, Department of Biochemistry, Cellular and Molecular Biology Research Center, Babol University of Medical Sciences, Babol, Iran
Darush Moslemi - Assistant Professor, Department of Radiation Oncology, Faculty of Medicine, Babol University of Medical Sciences, Babol, Iran
Sohrab Kazemi - PhD in Pharmaceutial Sciences, Neuroscience Research Center, Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine, Babol University of Medical Sciences, Babol, Iran

Background and Objective: Radiotherapy is the inseparable part of the oncology care for patients. Radiotherapy has dangerous side effects like oral mucositis, and the pain is caused by the fast destruction of Mucosa. In other side, the antioxidant property of lycopene is well proven. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of lycopene on Oral Mucositis (OM) in rat induced by gamma radiation.Materials and Methods: This experimental study was conducted in 28 male Wistar rats. They were divided into four groups (n=7 per group). 15 Gy of gamma radiation was used for 7 min and 39 sec. The rats were intraperitoneally (IP) injected within 6 days (daily) and their lips and tongues were examined to assess the incidence and severity of mucositis. Blood samples were also taken from the mice on days zero and six and the serum total antioxidant was evaluated by biochemical assays. Data analysis was done in SPSS V18. One-way ANOVA was done to analyze the datasets for mucositis and serum antioxidant capacity. Mann–Whitney test was applied for pairwise comparison of therapeutic groups in terms of the severity of mucositis.Finding: Lycopene caused no delay in the onset of mucositis but the severity of mucositis was lower in lycopene groups compared to that in the placebo group. According to FRAP test, total antioxidant capacity changes of serum were significant between treatment groups on day six between L50 and PR, L50 and LR25, PR and LR50, and LR25 and LR50 groups.Conclusion: Lycopene did not delay the onset of mucositis in treatment groups, but the severity of mucositis was lower in lycopene groups compared with that in placebo group

lycopene, mucositis, antioxidant, serum