Despite most patients with lung cancer experiencing significant weight loss (cancer cachexia), which is associated with worse mortality outcomes, there are currently no treatments available to patients to combat this syndrome. The lack of available treatments is due in part to challenges scientists have encountered in translating results from preclinical models into patient success.
Now, a new collaborative study published in Cell Reports, led by UVM Cancer Center member Deena Snoke, Ph.D., postdoctoral fellow in the Michael Toth, Ph.D., Laboratory, characterizes a novel preclinical mouse model of lung adenocarcinoma-associated cachexia, which better models features of human disease.