The Role of the Muscle-nervous System Interface in Cancer Cachexia (NUMANCAN)

University of Roma La Sapienza

Status: Unknown

Conditions: Cachexia; Cancer; Sarcopenia

Study type: Observational

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03477721

NUMANCAN

Details and patient eligibility

About

Sarcopenia is an important component of cachexia associated with cancer, and their high incidence in cancer patients emphasizes the need for a better understanding of its mechanisms, which can result in better therapeutic interventions to reverse this situation and improve the prognosis. Our hypothesis is that the plasma concentration of IL-6 and c-terminal agrin is directly correlated with the loss of muscle mass and development of cachexia.

Full description

The agrin is a protein that acts on neuromuscular junctions (NMJs) promoting stabilization of same, which results in the maintenance and growth of muscle fibers, but the cleavage of agrin, a process by which is formed the agrin fragment C-terminus (CAF), has been linked to the development of sarcopenia, because its presence is directly linked to the reduction in the number of muscle fibers, increasing the heterogeneity of fiber size, presence of Central cores and increasing the proportion of type I fibers and consequently a greater degradation of lean body mass. Studies in mice show that the greatest cleavage of agrin carries on development of sarcopenia and human studies report that individuals with higher serum levels of sarcopenia CAF compared to individuals without sarcopenia.

Therefore, aiming at the complexity of cancer associated with the cachexia and the great importance of the maintenance of lean body mass to a better prognosis in disease, is of fundamental importance to elucidate the role of CAF and the factors associated with sarcopenia, the possible use of these proteins for diagnosis and the contribution that this clarification could bring in clinical therapy.

Enrollment: 40 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 100 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• cancer diagnosis

Exclusion criteria

• continuously use of anti-inflammatory medications;
• present renal and/or liver failure,
• AIDS,
• inflammatory bowel disease or chronic inflammatory processes not related to cachexia.

Trial design

40 participants in 2 patient groups

Group with cancer cachexia (CTB)

Description:

For diagnosis of cachexia it will be used the following criteria (Evans et al., 2008)

Group without cancer cachexia (TB)