Life-altering fatigue will affect 80% of people getting chemotherapy or radiation therapy, plus most people who have metastatic cancer, and even many survivors long after treatment is done.

Yet fatigue in cancer patients has been under-reported, under-diagnosed, and under-treated, according to an expert panel convened by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) a decade ago to recommend cancer-related fatigue treatment guidelines.

Some good news: A recent Dutch study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology found that advanced cancer patients can get significant relief from serious fatigue, when their fatigue and other symptoms are regularly monitored and treated according to guidelines.

Some less good news: A small U.S. study published in Support Care Cancer found that even at an excellent cancer center, most metastatic cancer patients did not get any of the recommended treatments for even severe fatigue. Read the rest of this entry »

Dying cancer patients had less fatigue and their physical symptoms improved when they had physical therapy three times a week.

Control group patients who were not included in the PT program had both physical symptoms and quality of life get worse, even over two weeks of observation.

Patients in the study were part of a hospice program in Poland.

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Counseling that focuses specifically on fatigue can reduce its symptoms and help cancer patients cope with it during cancer treatment.

The Cochrane Collaboration reviewed randomized clinical trials of psychological interventions aimed at managing cancer fatigue.  Studies included both interventions that included fatigue among other symptoms and those that were directly at fatigue alone. Read the rest of this entry »

Cancer patients are often very tired, a bone-weary fatigue that doesn’t get better with rest.  Fatigue is the most common complaint from patients during chemotherapy.  However, a recent study found that one in four patients are already severely fatigued before treatment ever begins.

Severe fatigue was most common in patients with gastrointestinal cancer, where almost one in three were fatigued at diagnosis. Read the rest of this entry »

Update from 2008 ASCO Meeting in Chicago

Provigil® (modafinil) reduced fatigue in cancer patients receiving chemotherapy according to a study reported by Gary Morrow PhD at the 2008 ASCO meeting.

Patients who were severely fatigued after their first chemotherapy treatment had less fatigue after they received Provigil than those who got a placebo. They were also less sleepy during the day.

Severe fatigue was considered more than 6 on a 10 point scale. Patients with mild or moderate fatigue did not have a similar improvement.

Despite improvement in severe fatigue, there was no effect on depression. Read the rest of this entry »