Early satiety in cancer patients: a common and important but underrecognized symptom.

Introduction: The severity of anorexia correlates with the presence of early satiety. The sense of fullness limits nutritional intake. The symptom is poorly understood because most assessment questionnaires do not include early satiety.

Methods: Patients rarely volunteer early satiety. Central and peripheral mechanisms may be involved in the genesis of early satiety. These would include central sensory specific satiety, food aversions, diurnal changes in intake, gastric motility and accommodation and as gastrointestinal hormones.

Conclusions: Prokinetic medications, such as metoclopramide are used to treat early satiety. However, other medications which influence gastric accommodation such as clonidine, sumatriptan, or sildenafil, or diminish enteric afferent output such as kappa opioid receptor agonists, may favorably influence early satiety and should be subject to future research. Translational research is needed to understand the relationship of early satiety to gastric motility and accommodation.