Dietetic and Psychological Mindfulness Workshops for the Management of Cachectic Cancer Patients. A Randomized Study

To determine if actively-treated cancer patients developing cachexia could benefit from participation to mindfulness workshops.

Subjects developing cachexia signs while treated for cancer were randomized in a trial aiming to compare an experimental group that would participate to specific workshops based on mindfulness alternating dietetic and psychological approaches, and a control group managed in accordance to usual practice.

The recruitment was difficult (12% of the approached population). Finally 53 patients accepted to participate. Despite an unpredictable compliance of workshop participants, the final satisfaction score attained 75%. In comparison with the control group, patients randomized to the experimental group showed a significant benefit with an increase of their body weight and an improvement of their WHO status score. They also experienced an improvement of emotional function and observation faculty as well as a relief of fatigue and some digestive disorders.

Selected cachectic cancer patients may benefit from this experimental approach. This approach may, however, be difficult to implement on a large scale.