Assessment of Cancer-related Fatigue among Cancer Patients Receiving Various Therapies: A Cross-sectional Observational Study

INTRODUCTION

Constant fatigue is documented as one of the most frequent, ongoing symptom description by the patients following cancer treatment. Cancer-related fatigue (CRF) is a distressing, continual, and the personal sense of physical, emotional, and/or cognitive fatigue or tiredness related to cancer or cancer therapy that is hindered with normal performance.[1] Fatigue linked with cancer or its treatment is dissimilar from the characteristic fatigue that most people experience as a result of usual daily life. Distinct to classic fatigue in normal persons, CRF is inconsistent with physical exertion level and is not releived by rest or sleep.[2]

As CRF is a subjective sense of distressing, persistent emotional, and/or a cognitive tiredness; majority of cancer patients will acknowledge some level of fatigue during their treatment and about one-third will have constant fatigue several years posttreatment. Conversely, before presuming that fatigue is related to cancer, treatable causes of this symptom should to be ruled out, such as anemia, thyroid dysfunction, pain, depression, and lack of sleep.[3]

Since this is a known fact that a large proportion of cancer patients experience cancer treatment-related fatigue that includes physical and mental symptoms and it is a one of the most recurrently reported symptoms among cancer patients.[45] The prevalence of CRF may vary with an estimate of 60%–96% in cancer patients who are undergoing treatment experiencing fatigue.[67]

The consequence of CRF on a patient's capability to function is significant; therefore, this symptom is very hurtful as reported by patients. CRF can carry on for months or even years after the termination of cancer treatment. As the life expectancy of people with cancer increases with the evolution of new drugs and new therapeutic modalities’ at the same time the burden associated with CRF also grows many folds.[89] CRF also has an effect on cancer treatment as it may compromise the timing or finishing point of treatment regimens either because fatigue is a dose-limiting adverse effect or because it reduces the patient's willingness to adhere to treatment.[9]

The mechanisms accountable for this situation are poorly understood. Some pathophysiologic theories have been projected for CRF such as disrupted circadian rhythms, chronic stress response mediated through the hypothalamic-pituitary axis, systemic inflammatory response, and pro-inflammatory cytokines.[10] The role of inflammatory cytokines may be based on several lines of evidence such as nononcologic patients with chronic fatigue syndrome have increased levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines such as IL1 beta, IL 1 receptor antagonist, and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α),[11] and fatigue is a major side effect of cancer patients receiving interleukins, TNF-α, and interferon.[12] Several studies have revealed an association between fatigue and different types of oncological therapy. It is known that fatigue is the common side effect of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. it is reported that 65%–100% of patients undergoing radiotherapy,[131415] and up to 82%–96% of those receiving chemotherapy suffer from fatigue during their treatment and nearly all patients experience CRF those receiving the biologic modifiers’ interferon or interleukin.[161718]

Only in recent times, as the clinical picture of fatigue has been integrated into the field of oncology, regardless of its high occurrence and latent negative effect on patients’ activities and emotional comfort, research in CRF is still underdeveloped and there are scarcely very few studies reporting CRF among the Indian population. Without a doubt, its estimation is still often not included among the parameters usually used to demonstrate the toxicity of chemotherapy.

Different methods of evaluating and measuring the CRF have been projected or launched and the Brief Fatigue Inventory (BFI) is one of the methods developed to study CRF.[19] This instrument assesses fatigue over 24 h using a scale from 1 to 10 (1 indicates the absence of and 10 the worst imaginable fatigue).[19] Studies have shown that values of 7 or over are robustly connected with a clinically applicable level of CRF.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

This is a cross-sectional, noninterventional, study that has been carried out in hospitalized and outpatient department cancer patients from the oncology department at Guru Gobind Singh Medical College, Faridkot. We recruited 126 patients with advance cancers over 3-month period.

RESULTS

A total of 126 patients diagnosed with cancer, including 46 males and 80 females, which consist of 36.5% and 63.5%, respectively, who participated in this observation study. 83.3% of patients experienced fatigue according to BFI scale. The mean age was 49.13 years with the leading age group (57.1%), being 40–60 years. Among 126 patients, about 93.7% shown a negative family history of any tumor or malignancy. The most prevalent malignancy was genitourinary cancer 36 (28.6%), followed by breast cancer 27 (21.4%) and head and neck cancer 23 (18.3%) as shown in Table 1.

Table 1 Demographic profile of cancer patients

The Figure 1, described the CRF, which interferes with the daily routine activities of the patient. Among them, normal activities affected worst and relation with others was least hindered. There is statistical significance fatigue relation with anemic patients shown in Table 1. Fatigue percentages with chemotherapy and radiotherapy shown in Figure 2.

Close

Figure 1

Fatigue interferes with normal activities of cancer patients.

Export to PPT

Close

Figure 2

Prevalence of fatigue in chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

Export to PPT

There is a statistical correlation between fatigue and chemotherapy cycle and fatigue with specific drugs such as vinblastine, dacarbazine, and cyclophosphamide described in Table 2.

Table 2 Statistical relations of fatigue with different related parameters

DISCUSSION

CRF is the most widespread observable fact, in individuals with cancer who receive radiation therapy, cytotoxic chemotherapy, or biological response modifiers.[4] It is a multifactorial, multidimensional phenomenon, which consists of physical, psychological, social, cognitive, and behavioral characteristic.[20]

Fatigue is more common during chemotherapy, usually persist for more than 2 weeks; furthermore, it has been shown to have the maximum and most long-lasting impact after chemotherapy.[21] Almost every patient go through some kind of fatigue during cancer treatment and in the scientific literature, it is about 99% reported during the treatment course.[5] In spite of mounting confirmation, concerning the fatigue occurring due to a range of anticancer treatments and how CRF influence patient's quality of life, determining its severity is undervalued among the cancer patients suffering from this stressful symptom. The current study focuses on measuring the prevalence rate of fatigue (severity of fatigue) among the cancer patients receiving the various anticancer treatments.

The findings of this study revealed that as many as 80% of the participants experienced fatigue during their course of treatment, irrespective of the diagnosis. These scores appear to be in line with the prevalence rates of fatigue cited in other literature studies, i.e., 30%–90% during the course of treatment.[22] Females have more fatigue scores than males. Anemic patients noticed higher fatigue scores than nonanemic patients. Patients who received vinblastine, dacarbazine, and cyclophosphamide-based chemotherapy had statistically higher scores of fatigue. A study by Donovan et al. provides the first evidence that among women with early stage breast cancer, chemotherapy is related to more severe fatigue than radiotherapy, which is similar to our results.[23]

No significant correlation was found between the tumor site and amount of fatigue both during and after treatment in the current study. The results were contrary to the findings by Hickok et al., who studied the pattern of fatigue longitudinally in a sample consisting of breast, prostate, lymphoma and ovarian cancer, and prostate cancer patients experienced more fatigue.[24]

This study had certain other limitations in terms of sample size as it was relatively small and unequal between the groups. Nevertheless, the fact we did not examine potentially correctable etiologies for patients’ fatigue is a limitation of this study.

CONCLUSION

We observed that CRF is a symptom that is experienced by majority of cancer patients, irrespective of the diagnosis, or type of treatment received. The study showed high prevalence of fatigue in cancer patients, and in addition, results confirmed by our observation were similar to those cited in literature. Assessment of CRF should begin once the patient is diagnosed with cancer before patient receives anticancer treatment.