Managing Cancer Cachexia, with Charles Loprinzi, MD, FASCO, and Hester Hill Schnipper, LICSW

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Greg Guthrie: Hi, everyone. I'm Greg Guthrie, a member of the cancer.net content team. And I'll be your host for today's Cancer.Net podcast. Cancer.Net is the patient information website of ASCO, the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
Today, we're going to be talking about cachexia. And our guests are Dr. Charles Loprinzi and Hester Hill Schnipper. Dr. Loprinzi is the Regis Professor of Breast Cancer Research at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minnesota where he is an emeritus chair of the Division of Medical Oncology and an emeritus vice-chair of the Department of Oncology. He is also the Cancer.Net Associate Editor for Psychosocial Oncology. Thanks for joining us, Dr. Loprinzi.
Dr. Charles Loprinzi: It's good to be here, Greg.
Greg Guthrie: And Hester is the emeritus manager of oncology social work at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. And she now works in private practice. A 2-time breast cancer survivor, she's a nationally known speaker, is active in numerous oncology organizations, and has written 2 books about breast cancer. Her daily clinical responsibilities include working with individuals, couples, and families living with cancer, and facilitating support groups. She is also a member of the Cancer.Net Editorial Board. Thanks for joining us today, Hester.
Hester Hill Schnipper: Thanks for inviting me.
Greg Guthrie: Great. Now, today, ASCO is publishing a new guideline on the management of cancer cachexia. Dr. Loprinzi and Hester both served on the panel for this guideline. Before we begin, we should mention that they do not have any relationships to disclose related to this guideline. But you can find their full disclosure statements on Cancer.Net. Now, let's talk a little bit about what this guideline means for people with cancer and those who care for them. So Dr. Loprinzi, what is cancer cachexia, and how common is it?
Dr. Charles Loprinzi: So cancer cachexia, the definition. We oftentimes call it cancer anorexia/cachexia, and so I'll try to define both anorexia and cachexia. A lot of people have heard of anorexia nervosa where people do not eat very well, so it's a loss of appetite is what anorexia is. For the cachexia part, you think of the people in the World War II camps when they came out at the end, where they had not eaten for a long time, and they were very, very, very thin. So cancer anorexia and cachexia is a phenomenon that comes on in patients with cancer, very frequently when they have advanced cancer, but oftentimes when they're just diagnosed, where patients are much thinner, and they're not eating very well.
Greg Guthrie: Hester, did you have something to add on that?
Hester Hill Schnipper: I think many patients, when they are newly diagnosed, experience appetite loss even if their weight has been normal up until then. But one of the ways to divide the world, are people who can't stop eating when they're under stress, and people who shut down and don't eat when they're under stress. So plenty of brand-new cancer patients fall into the second category, and, at least for some period of time during the particularly crisis anxiety-filled weeks around diagnosis, are not eating very much or very well. But that, generally, improves then as things settle down and their treatment begins and is not usually a cause for real worry.
Greg Guthrie: So is the cause of cancer cachexia often caused by the cancer itself, or is it a reaction to the cancer?
Hester Hill Schnipper: I suspect that Dr. Loprinzi can answer that better than I can. But my impression is that it usually is caused by the cancer itself and just the multiple medical problems that may accompany an advanced cancer.
Dr. Charles Loprinzi: So I agree with Hester on this point here. And it's not the treatment; it's the cancer itself. People used to think that patients who were receiving chemotherapy for early breast cancer, they were going to lose a lot of weight because patients who were getting chemotherapy for advanced disease lost a lot of weight. But in fact, patients with early breast cancer, when they get chemotherapy to try to help cure them, they gain weight. So it's not the chemotherapy that's causing the problem. It's the cancer itself. It changes the metabolic phenomenon of the body. People don't eat very well. And even if they get calories in, they don't metabolize them well, and so they still lose weight.
Greg Guthrie: So, Hester, what are some of the problems that can come from cachexia?
Hester Hill Schnipper: Well, certainly there are many medical related problems that Dr. Loprinzi can speak to better than I can. But the psychosocial or psychological issues also can be very troublesome for both the patient and those who love the person who is ill. If you are feeling terrible and not eating, that is obviously worrisome both to the patient and to their family members. And family members, generally, react by trying to encourage or even really pressure somebody to eat: making favorite foods, bringing in much more food than somebody wants, and then feeling very disappointed and perhaps even rejected if the patient just can't eat it. I mean, certainly, much of our advice—and maybe we're going to be talking a little bit more about this later—is to sort of back off and to a large extent let the patient direct what he or she is willing and able to eat.
Dr. Charles Loprinzi: And I would add to that, when you've lost a lot of weight and you're not eating well, it can impair your ability to function well. Patients who have lost weight, related to cancer, do worse in terms of prognosis, with shorter survival and more side effects from chemotherapy. And their quality of life is not as good. So it is a big problem with those situations.
Greg Guthrie: So who's generally bothered more by a patient's loss of appetite. Is it the patient or the patient's family and loved ones?
Hester Hill Schnipper: My experience is that it's generally more the family and loved ones. I mean, if the patient doesn't feel like eating, he or she just doesn't feel like eating. I mean, we've all had viral syndromes where, for a few days, we don't have any appetite. And you just don't have any appetite or are not interested in it. And I think some exaggerated version of that is probably what most patients feel. But family members feel very worried about it. There's all the sort of mythology around food and around nurturing and around love, and most of us take pleasure out of cooking for and feeding people whom we love. And when someone you love is sick, those feelings are even larger than they might otherwise be, and we kind of panic if everything we're trying to do to take care of somebody isn't working.
Dr. Charles Loprinzi: So I agree with Hester. In many patients, they just don't have an appetite. It's not a problem. It's not like they have pain, or it's not like they have nausea or vomiting. Now there are some patients whom that bothers them that they don't have an appetite, but many patients it really doesn't bother them. But as Hester said nicely, the family is oftentimes bothered tremendously by this particular situation.
Greg Guthrie: Okay. So, Hester, I'm going to follow up a little more. Is it important for family and loved ones to encourage patients to eat more then?
Hester Hill Schnipper: I think not. I think it is very important to try in a loving non-pressured way to communicate about it like, "Dad, is there anything you can think of that might taste good? Would you like a little bit of ice cream?" I mean, that kind of comment. And if dad says, "No. I don't want anything," then try again a few hours later.
I mean, certainly more frequent offerings of small amounts of food are much more likely to be accepted than bringing in a full dinner plate. But I think it's important to take cues from the patient because too much pressure is going to result in somebody eating even less than she might have otherwise.
Dr. Charles Loprinzi: I agree with that, 100%. There is actually an interesting story, true story, of a patient who mentioned this to somebody who was interviewing the patient afterwards. And the patient had advanced cancer and noted that when some of her relatives came in to visit her—and these are in her dying days and weeks—when her family came in to visit her, she would pretend she was asleep so she wouldn't have to interact with them because she knew they were just going to pressure to eat. And that's just a disaster in my mind. So it's a crazy sort of story to hear and all that. But I've mentioned that sometimes to patients' families so that they know don't over-bother the patients.
Hester Hill Schnipper: We can all relate to that. Even though you've always loved my lasagna, you may not want it tonight.
Dr. Charles Loprinzi: Yes. Especially if I have a viral syndrome and I just feel bad, I want to kick the food across the room because if I eat it, I'm going to throw up.
Hester Hill Schnipper: Right.
Greg Guthrie: So for patients who need nutrition, how often should tubes be
Information
- Show
- FrequencyUpdated Bimonthly
- PublishedMay 20, 2020 at 8:00 PM UTC
- Length19 min
- RatingClean