Cachexia is a complex metabolic syndrome associated with an underlying illness
(such as cancer) and characterized by loss of muscle with or without loss
of fat mass
1. Improved approaches for detecting the onset and evolution of
muscle wasting would help to manage wasting syndromes and facilitate early
intervention
2. As metabolites produced from tissue breakdown are likely to be
a sensitive indicator of muscle wasting, urine samples were collected since several
end products of muscle catabolism are specifically excreted in urine
2. A total
of 77 urine samples were collected being 47 of them patients with cachexia, and
30 control patients. All one-dimensional NMR spectra of urine samples were
acquired and then the metabolites were detected and quantified, i.e. for each
metabolite its concentration was measured.