February 28, 2012

Drug may be near for cancer's companion condition cachexia


      This article was about the disorder that often is linked with cancer called cachexia. Cachexia is the muscle wasting and weight lost that often accompanies cancer patients. people with Cachexia lose about 5% of their weight in the period of 6 months. 90% of oncologists deny cachexia patients because there is no known treatment. Cachexia is especially prevelent advanced cancer patients, but also affects HIV, liver failure, and heart failure patients. But now two treatments that  boost muscle strength are in phase three clinical trials. This medication would boost the muscle strength of patients which would help them not lose weight due to cachexia. Scientists don't know for sure but they believe that this treatment will prolong cancer patients' lives.
      I liked this article because I had never even heard of Cachexia before. It's terrible to think about becaue fighting cancer must be hard enough, I never knew that people also had to worry about drastic weight loss. I hope that this treatment eventually hits shelves, and is safe. I think this medication might be useful for an array of things, and maybe not only cachexia. hopefully the drug would help terminally ill people live longer.

























5 comments:

KTress said...

Cancer is a horrible disease and to have to live with another disease on top of that is even worse. Hopefully these treatments work!

acavz said...

I never heard of this before really horrible, i hope they find a cure.

Jenai said...

To have this disease along with other terrible diseases is really sad. Im sure with much more research scientists are close to a cure. Very Interesting!

Shan said...

I also hope that these treatments are going to work and be used widespread over many different types of cancer patients. Losing a large amount of weight leads to so much more things, it's sad!

vas said...

I have also never heard of this before but it seems really terrible. there needs to be a cure asap!