EDISCIENCES

ABSTRACT

Background Chemotherapy results in toxic effects, causing damage to various systems, such as the human motor system. Objective To investigate the prevalence of lesions in the human motor system presented by patients undergoing chemotherapy treatment. Method Systematic Review with Meta-Analysis. Databases: PubMed, EMBASE and LILACS, in December 2022. Randomized controlled trials were included, with no restriction on publication period or language. Evaluation of the methodological quality using the RoB 2 tool and the GRADE system for the assessment of the quality of the evidence. The meta-analysis was performed using the R software. Registered in the PROSPERO database with ID: CRD42022384265. Results Ten studies were incorporated into the systematic review and for meta- analysis of proportion of fatigue, arthralgia, sensory neuropathy, motor neuropathy, myalgia, muscle weakness, weight loss, a variable number of studies was used. There were a total of 6672 patients and the proportion of occurrence consisted of 31% (0.30; 0.32), 20% (0.19; 0.22), 18% (0.17; 0.19), 10% (0.09; 0.12), 11% (0.10; 0.11), 12% (0.10; 0,13) and 13% (0.12; 0.15), respectively. There was a high risk of bias, according to Rob 2, in all included studies. In the analysis of the level of evidence by GRADE, five studies showed a very low level of evidence, with heterogeneity above 50%. Conclusions Different types of chemotherapy cause various damages to the motor system and possibly worsen patients' functionality.