Research Progress of Pharmacological Therapy and Nutritional Support for Cachexia 
in Lung Cancer Patients

Abstract

Cachexia is a common complication in patients with lung cancer. It aggravates the toxic and side effects of chemotherapy, hinders the treatment plan, weakens the responsiveness of chemotherapy, reduces the quality of life, increases complications and mortality, and seriously endangers the physical and mental health of patients with lung cancer. The causes and pathogenesis of tumor cachexia are extremely complex, which makes its treatment difficult and complex. Controlling cachexia in lung cancer patients requires many means such as anti-tumor therapy, inhibition of inflammatory response, nutritional support, physical exercise, and relief of symptoms to exert the synergistic effect of multimodal therapy against multiple mechanisms of tumor cachexia. To date, there has been a consensus within the discipline that no single therapy can control the development of cachexia. Some therapies have made some progress, but they need to be implemented in combination with multimodal therapy after fully assessing the individual characteristics of lung cancer patients. This article reviews the application of drug therapy and nutritional support in lung cancer patients, and looks forward to the research direction of cachexia control in lung cancer patients.

Keywords

• lung neoplasms
• cachexia
• drug therapy
• nutritional support
• combined modality therapy