Pitfalls in defining and quantifying cachexia

Cancer-related symptoms such cachexia and pain are subjects of a proliferation of assessment tools, diagnostic criteria, and systems for staging, which are notably disparate, and lack agreement on the variables to be measured. Teams of experts have worked diligently to develop consensus definitions of the terms cachexia and cancer cachexia, and these efforts provide the basis to develop agreement upon the measurements and tools that are applicable to the diagnosis and staging of cancer cachexia.