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Patients with advanced cancer often present with anorexia and weight loss. Poor nutritional status is associated with myriad adverse outcomes in this population. Medical management options have been limited, although corticosteroids and progesterone analogs (e.g., megestrol acetate) are commonly used. These investigators evaluated olanzapine — an antipsychotic agent that increases appetite and decreases nausea — for the treatment of chemotherapy-related anorexia in patients with locally advanced or metastatic gastric, hepatopancreaticobiliary, or lung cancer.
In the randomized, double-blind study, 124 adult patients received olanzapine (2.5 mg daily) or placebo for 12 weeks, starting on the first day of the first chemotherapy cycle. A signif…