Weight loss, appetite loss and food intake in cancer patients with cancer cachexia: Three peas in a pod? – analysis from a multicenter cross sectional study

Figures & data

Figure 1. Factors that impact weight loss in cancer patients.

Table I. Demographic data.

Characteristics	n^a	Range	%
Female	412		46.6
Age	62	18–89
BMI	24.3	10–61.9
Tumor localization
Digestive organs Breast Respiratory organs Male genitals Urinary Leukemias/lymphomas Skin Bone/soft tissue Head and neck Other	249 146 140 93 50 36 36 33 28 71		28.1 16.5 15.9 10.5 5.6 4.1 4.1 3.7 3.2 8.0
Metastatic disease^b
Bone Liver Lymph node Lung Brain Other	325 273 249 174 74 218		36.7 30.8 28.1 19.7 8.4 24.6
Current oncological treatment
Chemotherapy Radiotherapy No cancer treatment Survival (days) Karnofsky	424 184 225 247 72	1–713 20–100	47.9 20.8 25.4

^aNumber of patients or mean.

^bThe patients might have several metastatic sites.

Table II. Comparison of appetite loss and food intake.

Food intake compared to normal	Appetite loss
	Not at all		A little		Quite a bit		Very much
	N	%	N	%	N	%	N	%
Less than usual	49	13	102	27	127	33	104	27
Unchanged	230	56	123	30	42	10	16	4
More than usual	57	62	18	20	13	14	4	4

Table III. Univariate linear regression.

Characterizations^a	Food intake	Appetite loss	Weight loss
Global health status/QoL	0.22*	−0.37*	0.16*
Physical function	0.16*	−0.32*	0.20*
Role function	0.17*	−0.33*	0.17*
Emotional function	0.11*	−0.27*	0.08
Cognitive function	0.08	−0.24 *	0.11*
Social function	0.14*	−0.24*	0.13*
Fatigue	−0.24*	0.47*	−0.20*
Nausea/vomiting	−0.24*	0.45*	−0.15*
Pain	−0.18*	0.32*	−0.15*
Dyspnea	−0.12*	0.19*	−0.06
Insomnia	≤ 0.01	0.15*	−0.01
Appetite	−0.47*		−0.29*
Constipation	−0.14*	0.23*	−0.14*
Diarrhea	−0.02	0.16*	−0.08
Financial problems	0.04	0.11*	−0.07
Log CRP	−0.24*	0.26*	−0.19*
Breast cancer	0.02	−0.04	0.11*
Chemotherapy	0.07*	−0.11*	0.12*
Anti-emetic therapy	−0.12*	0.18*	−0.10
Weight loss	0.26*	−0.29*
Food intake		−0.47*	0.26*

^aOnly factors with standardized β values higher than 0.1 are presented, and thus not most cancer origins, metastatic sites, cancer treatments, age and gender. The standardized βs allow for comparison of the impact of the explanatory variables on the outcomes regardless of scales used. They indicate the highest relevance among the examined variables.

*P-values ≤0.001.

Figure 2. Survival curves.

Table IV. Multiple regression analysis*.

	Food intake R² = 0.27			Appetite loss, R² = 0.44			Weight loss, R² = 0.13
Characterizations	β	CI	Stand. β	β	CI	Stand. β	β	CI	Stand. β
Food intake				−18.03	−(21.84–14.22)	−0.32	2.48	1.11–3.86	0.16
Appetite loss	−0.01	−(0.01–0.01)	−0.42				−0.04	−(0.07–0.02)	−0.15
Weight loss	0.01	0.01–0.01	0.13
LogCRP	−0.11	−(0.17–0.03)	−0.11
Fatigue				0.30	0.18–0.41	0.26
Nausea/vomiting				0.38	0.30–0.48	0.22
Physical function							0.05	0.09–0.28	0.15
Gender							2.10	0.55–3.65	0.11

*All standardized β≥ 0.1, p ≤ 0.01.