Effects of ghrelin administration during chemotherapy with advanced esophageal cancer patients: a prospective, randomized, placebo-controlled phase 2 study

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial paper looks at Ghrelin.

The authors of this report conducted a prospective, randomized phase 2 trial to evaluate the effects of exogenous ghrelin during cisplatin-based chemotherapy.

Why It Was Studied

This may cause cisplatin-induced gastrointestinal disorders and hinders the continuation of chemotherapy.

Who Took Part

PubMed indexes the participants as adults, middle-aged adults and older adults, both men and women.

Forty-two patients with esophageal cancer who were receiving cisplatin-based neoadjuvant chemotherapy were assigned to either a ghrelin group (n = 21) or a placebo group (n = 21).

The primary endpoint was changes in oral calorie intake, and the secondary endpoints were chemotherapy-related adverse events; appetite visual analog scale (VAS) scores; changes in gastrointestinal hormones and nutritional status, including rapid turnover proteins, and quality of life (QoL) estimated with the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer QoL core questionnaire (QLQ-C30).

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized and placebo-controlled study.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Ghrelin and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

The comparison arm used a placebo, so changes seen with Ghrelin could be set against what happens without it.

What Was Measured

This may cause cisplatin-induced gastrointestinal disorders and hinders the continuation of chemotherapy.

PubMed files the paper under topics including Antineoplastic Combined Chemotherapy Protocols, Appetite, Carcinoma, Squamous Cell, Cisplatin, Energy Intake, Esophageal Neoplasms and Ghrelin.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized and placebo-controlled study of Ghrelin.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 5 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2012 (Cancer), a journal based in United States.

More context: the Ghrelin compound page, all human trials.