Clinical Management of Cancer-Related Cachexia: Review of the Literature.
Cachexia is among the most debilitating and life-threatening aspects of cancer, especially in the palliative care setting. It represents a metabolic syndrome affecting essential functional circuits involved in the regulation of homeostasis, with symptoms including anorexia, and fat and muscle tissue wasting.
Most patients experiencing cachexia do not receive proper management and suffer a profoundly
distressing experience, affecting not only the patients, but also the entire family. Thus,
oncologists and palliative care clinicians must understand its complex
pathophysiology and treatment. This article will review special considerations about
the anorexia-cachexia syndrome and which interventions are most effective in relieving this condition.
Signs and symptoms of cachexia have been reported since the time of Hippocrates. He
described it as a syndrome of wasting and progressive inanition among ill or dying patients. The word cachexia is derived from the Greek kakos “bad” and hexis “condition”. Cachexia represents the
clinical consequence of a chronic, systemic inflammatory response, and its manifestations differ considerably from those of starvation.
Cachexia is a multifactorial devastating syndrome, and is essentially irreversible; it affects
about 50-80% of cancer patients, usually in advanced stages of the disease.
It results in substantial weight loss, which is, by definition, more than 5% of the
usual weight during the prior 6 months.
It is clinically distinguished by anorexia, emaciation, weakness, and fatigue. It
results in damaged immunologic function, tissue consumption, and status performance decline,
and cannot be nutritionally reversed.
Palliat Med Hosp Care Open J. 2015; 1(2): 30-35. doi: 10.17140/PMHCOJ-1-106
