On December 13th and 14th a group of scientists and clinicians met in Washington, DC, for
the cachexia consensus conference. At the present time, there is no widely agreed upon
operational definition of cachexia. The lack of a definition accepted by clinician and
researchers has limited identification and treatment of cachectic patient as well as the
development and approval of potential therapeutic agents. The definition that emerged
is:“cachexia, is a complex metabolic syndrome associated with underlying illness and …