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Immune response tied to fatigue after breast cancer

David Douglas
Reuters Health
Posting Date: May 19, 2006

Last Updated: 2006-05-19 10:00:27 -0400 (Reuters Health)

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Breast cancer survivors who suffer from persistent fatigue appear to demonstrate significantly elevated levels of the inflammatory marker interleukin 6 (IL-6), and other changes, researchers report in the May 1st issue of Clinical Cancer Research.

"The study showed that there is an aberrant immune response in breast cancer survivors with persistent fatigue," senior investigator Dr. Michael R. Irwin told Reuters Health.

Dr. Irwin of the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, and colleagues note that the etiology of cancer-related fatigue remains poorly understood. They studied 32 fatigued and 18 non-fatigued breast cancer survivors who were recruited at least 2 years after successful primary therapy.

Among between-group differences seen were that ex vivo, lipopolysaccharide stimulation led to increased monocyte production of IL-6 and tumor necrosis factor alpha in fatigued subjects.

The team also found that the ratio of soluble IL-6 receptor to monocyte-associated IL-6 receptor and decreased circulating T69+ lymphocytes were "highly diagnostic of fatigue."

"With this information, we may now be able to identify those patients at greatest risk for persistent fatigue and develop targeted interventions early on that will lessen the severity and duration of the fatigue," Dr. Irwin concluded.

Clin Cancer Res 2006.