Inflammation in Cachexia

Cachexia is a complex wasting syndrome associated with a marked detrimental effect upon life quality and survival in patients with cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), chronic heart failure, AIDS, and chronic kidney disease, among other conditions. Its prevalence is of around 5 to 15% in cardiac patients at end stage, rising up to 30%, in COPD and chronic kidney disease patients, and to 80%, in patients with advanced cancer. Cachexia symptoms include pronounced weight loss, due to both lean and fat mass wasting: anorexia, malabsorption, nausea, asthenia, neuroendocrine changes, immune system function impairment, and disruption of energy metabolism. Despite its unquestionable relevance to the poorer outcome of treatment in disease and its high prevalence among patients, the syndrome is still underdiagnosed and seldom treated. Part of the difficulty in treating cachexia relies on the fact that, in the clinical setting, the syndrome is recognised solely in its most advanced stages, when therapy available to the present day is not able to fully reverse its symptoms. Therefore, scientists and clinicians should focus on identifying early changes, as to intervene in a precocious manner.