Routine clinical records and tumour genotyping for 52,236 patients with cancer were used to identify separate episodes of cachectic weight loss. The episodes occurred at times of disease progression and were linked to lower survival rates. They showed a consistent pattern across routine blood test results. Specific tumour genotypes, including TP53 mutations, were associated with a higher risk of cachexia, and models were trained to predict a patient's impending risk. The survival finding is an association from observational records, and does not establish that the weight loss itself shortens survival.
Why it is interesting: Weight loss recorded incidentally in ordinary oncology records becomes a dated marker of disease progression and of survival.
Cite this item
BibTeX
Free sign-up. A digest of the new papers twice a week, grouped by domain.
Other drivers in Health today
-
Cancer
Where is cancer incidence rising and falling, what screening and new tests find earlier, and what treatment has done to survival.
4 this week -
Obesity, diabetes and GLP-1
Are obesity and diabetes still rising, what behavioural change and public policy do, and what difference do GLP-1s and other similar drugs make.
1 this week -
Heart and stroke
Whether deaths from heart disease and stroke have stopped falling, what is found earlier, what treatment and prevention do now, and what the deaths say.
3 this week -
Mental health
Deaths by suicide, the life expectancy gap in severe mental illness, and the physical disease that follows it: what mental illness costs in lives.
1 this week -
Dementia
Whether dementia is becoming more or less common, what is now found, what treatment and prevention do, and what the deaths say.
3 this week -
Frailty and multimorbidity
Whether the years added after 85 are healthy ones, how frailty and multiple conditions are measured, and where the data run out.
1 this week
