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; age 65.2 +/- 11.0 years; body mass index 20.8 +/- 4.1 kg/m2) were examined 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 cm2 vs. 93.4 +/- 56.0 cm2, P < 0.05, P = 0.014). Otherwise, there were no significant differences between the visceral AT areas of cachectic cancer patients and those of cancer patients with resectable tumors treated by curative operation (mean +/- sd: 68.8 +/- 57.7 cm2) (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 result suggests that the visceral AT area is not preserved in the cachectic state associated with cancer.