Drug May Stop Cancer Patients’ Weight Loss

Thalidomide could be used as a treatment for cancer, according to research out yesterday.

The drug slows down weight loss and wasting in patients with an advanced form of pancreatic cancer, doctors from Southampton University Hospital have found.

Severe wasting, or cachexia, is the direct cause of death in one in five patients with advanced cancer.

It results from the disturbances in metabolism caused by a combination of the body’s immune response to the disease and the cancer’s production of a cocktail of powerful chemicals.

Although people who took 200mg of thalidomide daily during tests did not live longer than those who did not, their increased weight was matched by increased physical capacity.

Thalidomide reduces inflammation in the body, the researchers said, although they do not know exactly how it does it. Previous research has shown that thalidomide can improve the wasting typical in Aids patients and can also reduce weight loss as a result of tuberculosis