Karen Mustian, PhD, MPH, ACSM of the University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, New York, NY gives a brief overview of cachexia, which is a condition where patients lose over 10% of their muscle mass and/or fat mass. It puts patients at high risk for treatment dose reductions and is associated with a poor prognosis and a functional decline. It is also very closely associated with severe fatigue. Dr. Mustian proceeds to describe that more recently, there have been studies suggesting the use of exercise to treat fatigue and cachexia. It is therefore essential for doctors to realize that it is simply not enough to give patients an agent to hold their body mass stable. Functional impairment and fatigue is still present after treating patients with such agents. In the future, pharmaceutical agents and exercise interventions might be able to stabilize body mass, maintaining the physical function, and in turn, reducing the fatigue. Recorded at the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer (MASCC) and International Society of Ocular Oncology (ISOO) 2016 Annual Meeting on Supportive Care in Cancer held in Adelaide, Australia.
