Cachexia Vaccine

Cachexia is a wasting syndrome that can be seen in 20-50% of people with advanced cancer. This wasting syndrome results in rapid weight loss-especially from muscle. The syndrome is caused by immune hormones and a recently-identified molecule that can be found in the urine of cancer patients with cachexia, but not in healthy people or cancer patients without cachexia.

Scientists at ITL have developed a vaccine that targets the cachexia molecule found in the urine of cancer patients. The vaccine is experimental at this stage. Your doctor at ITL will determine whether or not you are a candidate to receive the vaccine.

It is hoped that research of this vaccine will lead to an effective treatment for cachexia syndrome.

In addition to the vaccine, your doctor may prescribe fish oil and an amino acid, L-glutamine, both of which have been shown to help with reversing cachexia syndrome.

Cachexia Definition: (ka-KEK-see-uh) The loss of body weight and muscle mass frequently seen in patients with advanced diseases.

The symptoms of cachexia are the most common symptoms experienced by patients with advanced cancer. They are more common than symptoms such as pain, nausea, and shortness of breath. Many cancer patients identify cachexia symptoms as most troubling to them.

Some types of cancer cause cachexia more often than others.
Cancers that most commonly cause cachexia: gastric, pancreatic
Cancers that often cause cachexia: lung, colon
Cancers that rarely cause cachexia: breast, leukemia, prostate.
Cachexia is estimated to be a major contributing cause of death in between 20-50% of cancer patients. Because many clinical trials and treatment regimens have entrance criteria that include degree of weight loss and functional capacity, patients with cachexia may not qualify for anti-cancer treatments that could be of benefit to them. Furthermore, patients with cachexia are less likely to have a positive response to anti-cancer-treatments, and are more likely to experience adverse effects from such treatments. In these ways, cachexia contributes both directly and indirectly to death from advanced cancer.

Even with adequate nutrition, a patient with cachexia will still lose weight because their body is not able to utilize the nutrients from food properly. Furthermore, the normal body adaptation to starvation (decreased basal metabolic rate and preferential use of fats as an energy source) does not occur in cachexia.

For most cancer patients the total tumor burden is only a small percentage of their total body mass, and the degree of cachexia does not correlate with tumor size. The metabolic rate of tumor tissue has been studied, and is the same as normal body tissues. cachexia also exists in other diseases in which there is no tumor, such as heart failure and AIDS.

Cachexia is thought to be caused by chemical messengers, also called immune cytokines, which are produced by the tumor itself, and by the body's immune system in response to the tumor.