Cancer Cachexia Syndrome clinical trials

Lenalidomide for Lean Body Mass and Muscle Strength in Inflammatory Cancer Cachexia Syndrome

Cancer cachexia syndrome (CCS) is frequent, causing high morbidity and mortality in affected ones. The mechanism is catabolism caused by the tumour. CRP is a surrogate marker for catabolism. There are no effective treatment options against CCS. Lenalidomide, a derivate of thalidomide, is an immunomodulatory drug (IMiD®). One of its' main effect is a decrease in inflammatory cytokines. As CCS treatment, thalidomide has shown in a randomized controlled trial to stabilize lean body mass. The effect of lenalidomide in solid tumour patients was negligible although, there might be a decrease in tumour progression. However, even if lenalidomide may be uninteresting as an anticancer treatment it might affect CCS dynamics. Respective data are currently lacking. Therefore, a dose level where an anticancer effect could be expected was chosen (group A). Relevant anti-inflammatory effect may occur below the commonly used doses to achieve tumour control, which is expected to be the main anti-cachexia effect. Therefore, a second CRP-response guided treatment arm (group B) was chosen. Hypothesis: To test whether the response rate under new standard basic cachexia management will be at the estimated 5% and with lenalidomide (either fixed dose or CRP-guided dose) in addition to basic cachexia management at least 25%. The primary objective of this study is to assess the efficacy of lenalidomide on lean body mass and handgrip strength in advanced solid tumour patients with inflammatory CCS.