CXCL8 and acute leukemia: In addition, in the comparison between patients with different outcome in terms of oral mucositis, patients that later developed oral mucositis were found to have higher concentrations of pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL-6, IL-8, and IFN-γ) at the time of cancer diagnosis, which could be largely explained by the high proportion of cases with acute leukemia in this group (15 out of 24).