Methylphenidate in the Management of Cancer-Related Fatigue

 Editorial

"Cancer-related fatigue (CRF) is increasingly recognized as a significant
problem for patients at all stages of the cancer journey1 from
diagnosis through treatment,2-4 in disease-free survival,5 and in endstage disease.6 Cross-sectional studies have reported that CRF causespatients more distress than pain or nausea and vomiting.7,8 For many years, fatigue was not taken seriously by the research community, and few randomized controlled trials were undertaken to determine the
most effective ways to manage this symptom. However the evidence
base, although still relatively small, is now rapidly growing. A Medline
search for randomized controlled trials using the key words “fatigue”
and “neoplasms” produced only seven articles between 1993 and
2001, but the same search criteria returned 71 articles published between
2002 and 2012. Systematic reviews have summarized the evidence
for the effectiveness of pharmacologic,9,10 exercise-based,11 and
psychosocial12 interventions...........