Cancer cachexia: A tumor-driven disorder of whole-body homeostasis - PubMed

3 hours ago

Cancer cachexia is a systemic metabolic syndrome driven by tumors, disrupting whole-body homeostasis.
It features skeletal muscle atrophy and adipose tissue loss, leading to functional decline, poor quality of life, reduced treatment tolerance, and worse survival across many cancers.
Cachexia arises from complex interactions between tumors and host systems (immune, metabolic, endocrine, neural), reshaping energy balance, immune function, and tissue integrity.
Effective therapies are limited due to incomplete mechanistic understanding and lack of integrated clinical frameworks.
Recent advances include insights into tumor-host signaling, multiorgan metabolic remodeling, and neuroendocrine regulation.
The article proposes a tumor-centric framework where cachexia represents a progressive collapse of systemic homeostasis and suggests translational strategies for therapeutic interventions.

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