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Fish oil and cancer survival

February 26th, 2008

Survival in advanced cancer patients is directly related to nutritional status, and this (as well as immune status) can be influenced by administration of fish oil together with vitamin E. This is the conclusion of Greek research just published in the journal “Cancer”.

The researchers studied a group of 60 patients with advanced, generalised solid tumours, which were felt to be no longer responsive to conventional treatment.

The cancer patients were randomised into intervention and placebo groups, with a further control group of 15 healthy patients. In each cancer group there were an equal number of adequately nourished patients and malnourished patients (as judged by a combination of weight loss >10%, serum albumin <30 g/L, serum transferrin <2.0 g/L and Karnofsky performance status <60) .

Intervention: consisted of daily fish oil (18 capsules of MAXEPA each containing 170 mg EPA/115 mg DHA) together with 200 mg of vitamin E. Nutritional status and immune function were measured before and during intervention. Immune assessment included T cell sub-sets and cytokine
production.

Results: Prior to treatment, the ratio of T-helper cells to T-suppressor cells was significantly lower in malnourished cancer patients compared to well nourished ones. This was considerably improved after fish oilsupplementation (see table 1).

Table 1: CD4/CD8 ratio before and after fish oil/vitamin E supplementation

ACTIVE PLACEBO Signif.
Well n. Maln. Well n. Maln. (Well n. vs Maln.)
————————————————————————————————–
Before 1.75 1.21 1.82 1.23 p<0.05
Day 40 2.03 1.84 1.79 1.19 NS
————————————————————————————————–
p value NS 0.05 NS NS
(pre vs post)

Initially malnourished patients survived for a mean period of 213 days (±19), compared with 481 days (±35) for initially well nourished patients.

The most interesting finding was that the combined group of supplemented patients – both those who were initially well nourished and those who were malnourished – had a significant increase in survival compared with the placebo patients (p < 0.025: see table 2).

The longest survived group was the initially well-nourished patients who received the supplementation, whilst the shortest survived group were the initially malnourished patients who were given placebo.

Table 2: Patient cumulative survival

Suppl. Placebo
————————————————-
Day 180 75% 50%
Day 240 65% 30%
Day 360 55% 25%
p<0.025

(NB: values above are approximate and estimated from the graph in the original paper)

Ref: Cancer 82:395-402, 1998

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