Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0006826 (cancer)
 1,092,456 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

In fifty patients with cancer, subjective and objective correlates of anorexia of malignancy were studied. Decreased taste was reported by 25 patients, and an aversion for meat was reported by 16 patients. The decreased taste symptom correlated with an elevated taste threshold for sweet (sucrose), and the symptom of meat aversion correlated with a lowered taste threshold for bitter (urea). The likelihood of having a taste abnormality increased with increasing extent of disease, but not with histologic type of neoplasm. Patients with an abnormality of taste had an increased incidence of weight loss compared with patients with normal taste, even though many in the latter group had other causes of weight loss. These observations suggest that an abnormality of taste may be one determinant of the anorexia of malignancy. Better understanding of the anorexia in the cancer patient may contribute to the care of the patient.
Cancer 1975 Nov
PMID:Abnormalities of taste sensation in cancer patients. 119 73

This paper presents in detail the symptomatology and findings on examination of 642 patients suffering from a variety of lower gastrointestinal disorders, such as colonic and rectal cancer, diverticular disease, Crohn's disease, and ulcerative colitis. Location of precise sites of abdominal pain and tenderness was shown to carry a high level of diagnostic discrimination between the various disorders. Some surprising features emerged: almost half of patients with lower gastrointestinal tract disease complained of symptoms referable to the upper gastrointestinal tract, such as nausea/vomiting or anorexia. It is suggested that the provision on demand of such data to junior staff may benefit both diagnostic ability and decision making. As an incidental finding, just under 40% of patients with large bowel cancer had undergone previous (unrelated) abdominal surgery. The significance of this is unclear.
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PMID:Clinical presentation of diseases of the large bowel. A detailed study of 642 patients. 124 82

There is, at present, considerable interest in the possible role for the proinflammatory cytokines, tumor necrosis factor-alpha, interleukin-1, interleukin-6, and interferon-gamma in the pathogenesis of cancer cachexia. Indirect evidence for such a role is based on the observation that chronic administration of many of these cytokines, either alone or in combination, can reproduce the myriad of host responses seen in experimental and human cancer cachexia. Elevated plasma levels of tumor necrosis factor-alpha, interleukin-2, and interferon-gamma have rarely been detected in patients or experimental animals with cancer, although interleukin-6 levels appear to correlate with tumor progression in animal models. The strongest evidence for a causal role for cytokines has come from rodent studies in which tumor-bearing animals have been passively immunized with antibodies directed against individual cytokines. Several groups have shown modest but significant improvements in food intake and lean tissue retention with antibodies directed against tumor necrosis factor-alpha, interleukin-1, interleukin-6, and interferon-gamma. However, there has been no consistent finding that one cytokine is universally involved in cancer cachexia in histologically distinct tumor models. One ominous finding in several tumor models has been that the endogenous production of cytokines appears to support tumor growth. Such findings raise the intriguing possibility that these cytokines, although contributors to tissue wasting and anorexia, may also serve the tumor as either direct or indirect cell growth factors.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
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PMID:The role of cytokines in cancer cachexia. 128 23

Tumor growth is accompanied by an anorexia mediated by humoral factors that appear to influence appetitive mechanisms in the brain. Because tumor resection is followed by resumption of normal food intake, the circulating anorexigenic substance(s) are produced either by the neoplastic tissue or by the host in response to the tumor. Increased levels of plasma free tryptophan and plasma ammonia have been proposed to mediate cancer anorexia. With animal models, it is often difficult to ascertain whether changes in food intake depend upon metabolic changes or the progressively increasing tumor mass per se. The feeding patterns and biochemical changes that occur during tumor growth were evaluated in 96 male Fischer rats that were inoculated with 10(6) methylcholanthrene sarcoma cells or saline (controls). Rats were placed into metabolic cages equipped with an Automated Computerized Rat Eater Meter to continuously determine meal size and meal number. Plasma free tryptophan and ammonia were evaluated 6, 10, 16, 18, 22, and 26 days after tumor inoculation. Anorexia developed by day 17-18, when food intake started to decrease via a decrease in meal size but not meal number and reached 60% of control by day 26. However, long before anorexia developed, free tryptophan was significantly higher 6 days after tumor inoculation, and the greatest increase occurred after 18 days. Ammonia did not differ from control at any time. Data confirm tumor-associated increases in plasma free tryptophan that occurred before the manifestation of anorexia and support a possible role of brain serotonin in cancer anorexia.
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PMID:The early cancer anorexia paradigm: changes in plasma free tryptophan and feeding indexes. 128 25

Many common metastatic cancers are associated with marked weight loss at the time of diagnosis. Anorexia clearly plays a major role in weight loss in the cancer patient, but cannot explain all of the weight loss noted. Malnourished patients with localized cancers under metabolic ward conditions fail to gain weight when given apparently adequate calories for anabolism, thus suggesting that these patients are hypermetabolic. Increased whole body protein breakdown, increased lipolysis, and increased gluconeogenesis have been repeatedly demonstrated in malnourished cancer patients. Protein and glucose metabolism are closely linked, and both are regulated by a number of the same hormones and metabolites. For example, when increased glucose production in malnourished cancer patients is inhibited pharmacologically, protein catabolism is proportionally decreased. Studies of glucose, growth hormone, cortisol, and insulin secretion following an oral glucose load in well-nourished cancer patients are consistent with insulin resistance but no other hormonal abnormalities. Malnourished cancer patients have elevated levels of growth hormone that are further stimulated by arginine and insulin infusion. No abnormalities of thyroid function were noted in cancer patients. Current studies are underway to determine the mechanisms and effects of progestational steroids and cytokines on both food intake and intermediary lipid metabolism.
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PMID:Hormonal and metabolic abnormalities in the malnourished cancer patient: effects on host-tumor interaction. 128 26

The endpoints used as outcome variables in clinical cancer treatment trials, including nutrition intervention studies, should contain items that are meaningful to the patient. Variables to consider are appetite, food intake, physical performance, psychological and social functioning, response to cancer therapies, survival time, nutrition status, associated morbidity, and costs. Ideally, the design and conduct of nutrition trials should be carried out by a multidisciplinary team comprising medical oncologists, physician specialists in nutrition, dietitians, and social scientists. Anorexia has not been a focus of nutrition support trials in the past partly because of the lack of effective strategies to reverse it. Anorexia is one important cause of cancer starvation, and it also causes patient discomfort. This paper describes outcome variables that include patient derived subjective factors such as anorexia, and outlines new strategies to reverse anorexia. Pharmacologic strategies tested to reverse anorexia include corticosteroids, anabolic steroids, cyproheptadine, hydrazine sulfate, cannabinoids, and megestrol acetate. Of these, only the latter has been consistently well tolerated and effective, with significant improvements in appetite and food intake demonstrated in large-scale, randomized, controlled trials involving more than 600 cancer patients. Dose-response studies have demonstrated increasing efficacy with increasing doses of megestrol acetate from 160 to 800 mg/day. Doses in excess of 800 mg/day are not currently recommended. The mechanisms of action of megestrol acetate involve both behavioral and metabolic effects, and its impact on energy expenditure, appetite, body composition, endocrine function, and lipid metabolism is the subject of ongoing research.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
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PMID:Nutrition in advanced cancer: anorexia as an outcome variable and target of therapy. 128 31

A retrospective study was carried out on 396 patients who presented with ovarian masses. Sixty five (16%) patients were found to have ovarian malignancy while the rest either had benign ovarian tumours (n = 159), endometriotic cysts (n = 130), physiological cysts (n = 20) or inflammatory masses (n = 7). The relative risk for ovarian malignancy among these patients increased significantly (p < 0.001) after the age of 40 years. The presence of ascites, abdominal distension, urinary complaints and loss of appetite and weight were significant individual risk factors for malignancy. Ultrasound image of a complex cyst is also associated with increased risk of malignancy in an ovarian mass. None of the individual risk factors was discriminatory between a benign and malignant cyst. However, these factors can be combined to form a 20-point risk scoring system. The risk of malignancy in an ovarian cyst increased with increasing scores. In this study, the median scores were 3 for benign cyst, 7 for borderline malignancy and 12 for malignant cysts. Using a total score of 7 as a cut off point, one can detect 75% of malignant cysts with a specificity of 84.1%, a positive predictive value of 47.5% and a negative predictive value of 94.6%. It is concluded that the majority of malignant ovarian cysts can be identified preoperatively to allow arrangement and planning of an optimal surgery.
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PMID:Risk factors and a risk scoring system for the prediction of malignancy in ovarian cysts. 830 9

Shi-Quan-Da-Bu-Tang (Ten Significant Tonic Decoction), or SQT (Juzentaihoto, TJ-48) was formulated by Taiping Hui-Min Ju (Public Welfare Pharmacy Bureau) in Chinese Song Dynasty in AD 1200. It is prepared by extracting a mixture of ten medical herbs (Rehmannia glutinosa, Paeonia lactiflora, Liqusticum wallichii, Angelica sinesis, Glycyrrhiza uralensis, Poria cocos, Atractylodes macrocephala, Panax ginseng. Astragalus membranaceus and Cinnamomum cassia) that tone the blood and vital energy, and strengthen health and immunity. This potent and popular prescription has traditionally been used against anemia, anorexia, extreme exhaustion, fatigue, kidney and spleen insufficiency and general weakness, particularly after illness. In order to restore immunity in cancer patients, potentiate the therapeutic effect and ameliorate adverse toxicity of anticancer agents, 116 Chinese herbal formularies (Kampo) have been screened and evaluated. Fifteen compounds were found to have such actions. Among these, SQT was selected as the most effective as a potent biological response modifier. During the last eight years, animal models and clinical studies have revealed that SQT demonstrates extremely low toxicity (LD50 > 15 g/kg op murine), self-regulatory and synergistic actions of its components in immunomodulatory and immunopotentiating effects (by stimulating hemopoietic factors and interleukins production in association with NK cells, etc.), potentiates therapeutic activity in chemotherapy (mitomycin, cisplatin, cyclophosphamide and fluorouracil) and radiotherapy, inhibits the recurrence of malignancies, prolongs survival, as well as ameliorate and/or prevents adverse toxicities (GI disturbances such as anorexia, nausea, vomiting, hematotoxicity, immunosuppression, leukopenia, thrombocytopenia, anemia and nephropathy, etc.) of many anticancer drugs. The application and mechanistic studies of SQT in future development have potential importance in basic and clinical research of the traditional Chinese therapeutic approach of "toning the blood and strengthening Qi (vital energy)" in cancer immunotherapy.
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PMID:Shi-quan-da-bu-tang (ten significant tonic decoction), SQT. A potent Chinese biological response modifier in cancer immunotherapy, potentiation and detoxification of anticancer drugs. 129 61

In a multicentre study patients with liver metastases stratified to the histology of the primary tumour were investigated. A total of 102 patients with colorectal adenocarcinoma, non-small-cell lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, primary liver carcinoma and malignant melanoma were treated with the thioether lipid ilmofosine. The drug was administered orally as a tablet at a dosage of 150-300 mg/day (75 mg/tablet). The tolerability of ilmofosine was poor. There was a dose-limiting gastrointestinal toxicity with nausea, vomiting and loss of appetite (WHO grade II-IV) in 67% of patients. During the period of therapy (1-29 weeks, 8.5 weeks mean) no complete remission and no partial response were observed. We thus conclude that treatment with oral ilmofosine is not effective in patients with liver metastases due to various malignancies.
J Cancer Res Clin Oncol 1992
PMID:Treatment results of the thioether lipid ilmofosine in patients with malignant tumours. 132 33

It has been shown in phase II studies that 254-S, a new anticancer platinum complex, is effective in the treatment of various cancers. In order to more objectively evaluate the clinical usefulness of this compound, a randomized comparative study of 254-S plus VDS vs. CDDP plus VDS was conducted in patients with advanced NSCLC. 254-S or CDDP was intravenously administered at 90 mg/m2, at least 2 times at 4-week intervals. VDS was intravenously administered at 3 mg/m2 on Days 1 and 8 of each treatment of 254-S or CDDP. Of 136 patients registered, 121 (64 of the 254-S/VDS group and 57 of the CDDP/VDS group) were evaluable for tumor response (complete cases). There was no significant intergroup difference in the tumor response rate (254-S/VDS group: 12.5% [8/64], CDDP/VDS group: 15.8% [9/57]), nor by cancer staging, histological type or survival. As for toxic effects, leukopenia was significantly less frequent in the 254-S/VDS group while thrombocytopenia was significantly less frequent in the CDDP/VDS group. Nephrotoxicity such as an elevation of BUN and a decrease in serum creatinine was significantly less frequent in the 254-S/VDS group in spite of the lower volume hydration performed. In addition, nausea and vomiting as well as anorexia were observed with significantly lower incidences in the 254-S/VDS group despite the less frequent anti-emetic treatment. Based on these results, it was concluded that combination treatment with 254-S and VDS is a safe and useful regimen for treatment of NSCLC, generating antitumor effects equivalent to the CDDP/VDS regimen.
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PMID:[A randomized comparative study of 254-S plus vindesine (VDS) vs. cisplatin (CDDP) plus VDS in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC)]. 132 Aug 46


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