Special features

Anorexia-cachexia — Pharmacological management

By Inga Andrew, MRPharmS, DipClinPharm, Colette Hawkins MRCP, MBBS, Kerry Waterfield MRCP, MBBS, and Graeme Kirkpatrick MRPharmS, DipClinPharm

Management of anorexia-cachexia syndrome centres around treating the symptoms. This article describes evidence for the drugs currently used to manage these symptoms and those that look promising for the future

This article as a PDF (60K)

Inga Andrew is Macmillan senior clinical pharmacist

Colette Hawkins is consultant in palliative medicine

Kerry Waterfield is staff grade in palliative medicine

Graeme Kirkpatrick is deputy chief pharmacist

all at University Hospital of North Durham, County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust.

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Eicosapentanoic acid has shown to be beneficial in ACS patients

SUMMARY

Anorexia-cachexia is a complex syndrome commonly seen in cancer patients, as discussed in the first part of this special feature (p249).

Because the exact mechanism of the syndrome is not completely understood, management focuses on controlling the symptoms it produces, rather than targeting the causes.

This article describes the drugs used to treat the main symptoms of ACS.

Full text article PDF (60K)