Application of ATP Infusions in Palliative Home Care

• Status: Completed
• Trial end date: 2006-10-01
• Target enrollment: 0
• Participant gender: All

Summary

Palliative care in cancer aims at alleviating the suffering of patients. A previous study in patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer showed that adenosine 5'-triphosphate (ATP) infusions had a favourable effect on fatigue, appetite, body weight, muscle strength, functional status, quality of life, and survival. Based on these promising results, the present study was designed 1. To evaluate whether the beneficial effects of ATP administration observed in patients with advanced lung cancer would also be present in pre-terminal cancer patients of different tumour types, and 2. To test the feasibility of application of ATP infusions in a home care setting.

• Phase: Phase 3
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers?: No

Details

• Lead Sponsor: Maastricht University Medical Center
• Collaborator: ZonMw: The Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development
• Treatments: Adenosine

Criteria

Inclusion Criteria:

• cytologically or histologically confirmed cancer

• medical treatment options restricted to supportive care

• a life expectancy < 6 months

• World Health Organization (WHO) performance status 1 or 2

• suffering from at least one of the following complaints: fatigue, weight loss > 5% over the last 6 months, or anorexia

Exclusion Criteria:

• symptomatic angina pectoris

• symptomatic heart failure

• any form of atrioventricular (AV) block (assessed by electrocardiogram)

• life expectancy < 4 weeks

• concurrent palliative chemotherapy

• cognitive dysfunction, and other diseases hampering adequate follow up