Intervention of Mirtazapine on gemcitabine-induced mild cachexia in nude mice with pancreatic carcinoma xenografts

Table 1 Effect of Mirtazapine on body weight and nutritional status

Nutritional status	Group	Baseline	5 d	9 d	13 d	17 d	21 d	25 d	28 d
Body weight (g)	Control	21.64 ± 0.96	21.51 ± 0.89	21.20 ± 0.73	20.86 ± 0.71	20.15 ± 0.67	18.70 ± 0.58	17.24 ± 0.53	16.04 ± 0.66
	Mirtazapine	21.75 ± 0.75	21.69 ± 0.79	21.59 ± 0.75	21.14 ± 0.52	20.50 ± 0.50	19.13 ± 0.55	18.05 ± 0.68	16.89 ± 0.73
	P value	0.783	0.654	0.282	0.386	0.266	0.151	0.014	0.017
Subcutaneous fat (mm)	Control	0.74 ± 0.14	0.72 ± 0.14	0.70 ± 0.13	0.69 ± 0.09	0.66 ± 0.09	0.60 ± 0.10	0.50 ± 0.10	0.41 ± 0.07
	Mirtazapine	0.71 ± 0.12	0.70 ± 0.11	0.70 ± 0.10	0.69 ± 0.10	0.68 ± 0.10	0.63 ± 0.10	0.52 ± 0.09	0.44 ± 0.08
	P value	0.691	0.773	0.928	0.938	0.845	0.697	0.708	0.548
Arm circumference (mm)	Control	19.45 ± 1.21	19.03 ± 0.81	18.29 ± 0.88	17.24 ± 0.52	16.00 ± 0.62	15.13 ± 0.68	13.76 ± 0.65	13.06 ± 0.52
	Mirtazapine	19.52 ± 0.88	19.20 ± 0.73	18.51 ± 0.65	17.58 ± 0.67	16.27 ± 0.67	15.31 ± 0.68	14.04 ± 0.54	13.25 ± 0.53
	P value	0.901	0.694	0.619	0.323	0.482	0.621	0.424	0.566

Table 2 Effects of Mirtazapine on tumor size, pancreatic tumor weight and food intake

Effects on tumor size (mL)
Group	5 d	9 d	13 d	17 d	21 d	25 d	28 d
Control group	37.67 ± 7.57	62.59 ± 24.06	105.39 ± 19.92	174.77 ± 15.16	258.54 ± 20.98	365.58 ± 17.63	472.62 ± 13.03
Mirtazapine group	37.12 ± 10.55	58.09 ± 26.00	100.21 ± 21.87	171.57 ± 16.94	246.88 ± 25.64	357.80 ± 15.75	466.95 ± 14.21
P value	0.926	0.748	0.638	0.726	0.376	0.411	0.454
Effects on pancreatic tumor weight (g)
Group	Mice body weight (Tumor-bearing) (g)		Mice body weight (Tumor removed) (g)		Tumor weight (g)	P value
Control group	16.04 ± 0.66		15.61 ± 0.59		0.42 ± 0.09	0.35
Mirtazapine group	16.89 ± 0.73		16.51 ± 0.63		0.37 ± 0.11
Effects on food intake
Group	Basic line	7 d	14 d	21 d	28 d
Control group	5.15 ± 0.12	5.13 ± 0.13	4.21 ± 0.10	3.54 ± 0.10	3.02 ± 0.16
Mirtazapine group	5.17 ± 0.15	5.19 ± 0.14	4.41 ± 0.16	3.95 ± 0.14	3.57 ± 0.11
P value	0.917	0.544	0.054	0.004	0.003