Definition
Cachexia is a state of profound general wasting, characterized by prostration, slowing of psychic abilities, loss of appetite and reduction of adipose and especially muscle masses (negative nitrogen balance).
Causes
Read also: Cachexia - Causes and Symptoms »
Cachexia can be the expression of several conditions:
- starvation cachexia: typical of states of profound malnutrition, often accompanied by edema, hypocholesterolemia, hypothermia and arterial hypotension (see Kwashiorkor and Marasma).
- Endocrine cachexia: caused by serious pathologies of the endocrine system (responsible for the production of hormones), for example due to a "pathological hyposecretion of pituitary hormones (Simmonds' disease or pituitary cachexia).
- Infection cachexia: can be caused by particularly debilitating infectious diseases, such as malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS.
- Cachexia from dementia or anorexia nervosa (determined by the almost total loss of appetite, due to a complex psychic illness typical of the adolescent period).
- Cachexia from autoimmune diseases.
- Addiction cachexia.
- Neoplastic cachexia: typical of patients affected by malignant tumors in the pre-terminal phase (especially if located in the "esophagus or stomach), it has a complex" etiology in which different mechanisms come into play (anorexia, alteration of glucose metabolism and release of substances produced both by the tumor and by the host, capable of influencing the body's metabolism by moving it towards catabolism); it often represents the most debilitating feature of this morbid process.
Treatment
The therapy of cachexia aims to calculate and provide the patient with nutritional supplies suitable to cover the energy, protein, carbohydrate, lipid, vitamin and hydroelectrolytic needs, obviously taking into account the general conditions, the nutritional status, the pathology that the " caused and any pre-existing metabolic diseases (diabetes, gout, cirrhosis, kidney failure).
In relation to the patient's condition, nutrition may take place by OS, by nasogastric or nasal enteric tube or by parenteral route.
