Thyrotropin-releasing hormone as a treatment for cancer-related fatigue: a randomized controlled study

What Was Tested

Researchers studied TRH (Thyrotropin-Releasing Hormone) in this randomized controlled trial publication.

Fatigue is a common and often disabling symptom for cancer patients.

Thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH), a key regulator of homeostasis, exerts arousing and analeptic actions in instances of behavioral depression.

Who Took Part

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were middle-aged adults, both men and women.

Secondary outcome measures included the profile of mood states (POMS) questionnaire, a 6-min walking test, the hospital anxiety and depression scale, the Leeds sleep questionnaire, and assessment of quality of life using the Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy-Fatigue (FACIT-F).

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized, placebo-controlled, crossover and pilot.

Because people in this TRH (Thyrotropin-Releasing Hormone) study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

A placebo (an inactive look-alike) gave the TRH (Thyrotropin-Releasing Hormone) group a baseline to be compared against.

In the crossover set-up each of the participants took both TRH (Thyrotropin-Releasing Hormone) and the comparison in turn, acting as their own control.

It is described as a pilot, a small early test of whether a larger TRH (Thyrotropin-Releasing Hormone) study would be practical.

The primary outcome measure was the visual analog scale for energy (VAS-E) assessed at 3, 7, and 24 h post-study medication administration.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Fatigue, Linear Models, Neoplasms, Pilot Projects, Quality of Life, Surveys and Questionnaires and Thyrotropin-Releasing Hormone.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, placebo-controlled and crossover study of TRH (Thyrotropin-Releasing Hormone).

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 6 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2012 (Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer), a journal based in Germany.

More context: the TRH (Thyrotropin-Releasing Hormone) compound page, all human trials.