DIMINISHED VISCERAL ADIPOSE-TISSUE IN CANCER CACHEXIA

To estimate the relationship between the visceral adipose tissue (AT) area and cancer cachexia, 13 cachectic patients (7 males, 6 females; a ge 65.2 +/- 11.0 years; body mass index 20.8 +/- 4.1 kg/m(2)) were exa mined by computed tomography (CT) scanning. Cachectic cancer patients who had a 10% decrease of body weight and died within 6 months because of gastrointestinal carcinoma had a significantly smaller visceral AT area than control subjects (mean +/- sd: 43.9 +/- 42.2 cm(2) vs. 93.4 +/- 56.0 cm(2), P < 0.05, P = 0.014). Otherwise, there were no signif icant differences between the visceral AT areas of cachectic cancer pa tients and those of cancer patients with resectable tumors treated by curative operation (mean +/- sd: 68.8 +/- 57.7 cm(2)) (NS, P = 0.206). There was, however, a tendency for cachectic cancer patients to have a smaller visceral AT area than those with resectable tumors. This res ult suggests that the visceral AT area is not preserved in the cachect ic state associated with cancer. (C) 1994 Wiley-Liss, Inc.