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Cells
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Emerging Topics in Cachexia
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Emerging Topics in Cachexia

A special issue of Cells (ISSN 2073-4409).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 June 2026 | Viewed by 2701

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Gabriela Salim Ferreira De Castro

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Cancer Metabolism Research Group, Department of Cell and Tissue Biology, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, University of São Paulo, São Paulo 05508-900, Brazil
Interests: muscle loss; inflammation; cachexia; sarcopenia; body composition

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Cachexia has a deadly impact on disease prognostics, although it continues to be underdiagnosed and does not have an established treatment protocol. Cancer cachexia syndrome is mainly characterized by involuntary body weight loss due to anorexia and skeletal muscle and adipose tissue wasting. This Special Issue aims to publish selected articles related to new strategies to mitigate cachexia, studies that seek to identify the optimum treatment timing, the results of innovative therapies, and new biomarkers, and research that helps to elucidate this intricate syndrome. Furthermore, thoughtful reviews that bring together the most recent evidence on cachexia are welcome.

Dr. Gabriela Salim Ferreira De Castro
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Cells is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • cachexia
  • skeletal muscle loss
  • adipose tissue loss
  • inflammation
  • sarcopenia
  • cancer
  • body composition
  • biomarkers

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

31 pages, 5548 KB  
Article
Reliable Radiologic Skeletal Muscle Area Assessment—A Biomarker for Cancer Cachexia Diagnosis
by Sabeen Ahmed, Nathan Parker, Margaret Park, Daniel Jeong, Lauren C. Peres, Evan W. Davis, Jennifer B. Permuth, Erin M. Siegel, Matthew B. Schabath, Yasin Yilmaz and Ghulam Rasool
Cells 2026, 15(6), 515; https://doi.org/10.3390/cells15060515 - 13 Mar 2026
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 837
Abstract
Loss of skeletal muscle mass in cancer cachexia is associated with poorer survival, reduced treatment tolerance, and diminished quality of life. Routine oncology computed tomography (CT) can yield skeletal muscle area (SMA) and skeletal muscle index (SMI) for early cachexia assessment and prognostication, [...] Read more.
Loss of skeletal muscle mass in cancer cachexia is associated with poorer survival, reduced treatment tolerance, and diminished quality of life. Routine oncology computed tomography (CT) can yield skeletal muscle area (SMA) and skeletal muscle index (SMI) for early cachexia assessment and prognostication, but manual annotation is labor intensive and existing automated tools often show inconsistent reliability. We developed SMAART-AI (Skeletal Muscle Assessment—Automated and Reliable Tool based on AI), a fully automated pipeline that localizes the third lumbar (L3) vertebral level, segments skeletal muscle, and quantifies prediction uncertainty to flag potentially unreliable outputs. Performance and reliability were evaluated across gastroesophageal, pancreatic, colorectal, and ovarian cancer cohorts, benchmarking against expert annotations and existing tools. SMAART-AI achieved a Dice score of 97.80% ± 0.93% in gastroesophageal cancer and a median SMA deviation of 2.48% from expert annotations across pancreatic, colorectal, and ovarian cohorts. Uncertainty scores correlated strongly with prediction error, enabling identification of high-error cases to support trustworthy deployment. Integrating the SMA/SMI with clinical features and body mass index (BMI) improved survival prediction (concordance index was +2.19% for colorectal, +9.82% for pancreatic, and +2.58% for ovarian cancer) and supported cachexia detection (70.00% accuracy; F1 80.00%). Overall, SMAART-AI provides an uncertainty-aware, clinically translatable framework for scalable CT-based muscle assessment and improved oncologic prognostication. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Topics in Cachexia)
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18 pages, 2478 KB  
Article
Concurrent Physical Activity Protects Against C26 Adenocarcinoma Tumor-Mediated Cardiac and Skeletal Muscle Dysfunction and Wasting in Males
by Louisa Tichy, Kimberly F. Allred, Erika T. Rezeli, Michael F. Coleman, Clinton D. Allred, Stephen D. Hursting and Traci L. Parry
Cells 2025, 14(12), 924; https://doi.org/10.3390/cells14120924 - 18 Jun 2025
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1229
Abstract
Muscle loss unresponsive to nutritional supplementation affects up to 80% of cancer patients and severely reduces survival and treatment response. Exercise may help preserve muscle mass and function, yet the translatability of preclinical methods remains questionable. This study aimed to assess how voluntary [...] Read more.
Muscle loss unresponsive to nutritional supplementation affects up to 80% of cancer patients and severely reduces survival and treatment response. Exercise may help preserve muscle mass and function, yet the translatability of preclinical methods remains questionable. This study aimed to assess how voluntary wheel running, a clinically relevant physical activity, protects skeletal and cardiac muscle against cancer-mediated dysfunction and identify underlying molecular mechanisms. Methods: BALB/c mice were assigned to sedentary nontumor-bearing (SED+NT), sedentary tumor-bearing (SED+T), wheel run nontumor-bearing (WR+NT), and wheel run tumor-bearing (WR+T). Tumor-bearing groups received 5 × 105 C26 cells; WR mice had wheel access for 4 weeks. Muscle function and tissue were analyzed for protective mechanisms. Results: SED+T mice exhibited significant fat and lean mass loss, indicating cachexia, which was prevented in WR+T mice. SED+T also showed 15% reduced grip strength and cardiac dysfunction, while WR+T preserved function. WR+T mice had lower expression of muscle wasting markers (Atrogin1, MuRF1, GDF15, GDF8/11). Physical activity also reduced tumor mass by 57% and volume by 37%. Conclusion: Voluntary wheel running confers tumor-suppressive, myoprotective, and cardioprotective effects. These findings support physical activity as a non-pharmacological strategy to combat cancer-related muscle wasting and dysfunction. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Topics in Cachexia)
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