Hydrazine sulfate and cancer cachexia

Hydrazine sulfate, a gluconeogenic blocking agent designed to inhibit cancer cachexia, has produced significant subjective response in late‐stage cancer patients as well as a degree of accompanying “objective”; response, while at the same time inducing little or no important clinical side effects. In addition the drug has been demonstrated to inhibit tumor growth and potentiate the action of cytostatics in a variety of experimental animal tumors. The mechanism of action for these latter responses is indicated to be indirect and not a function of tumor cytotoxicity. It is suggested that new indices of subjective response replace standard cytotoxic criteria in the evaluation of a non‐cytotoxic drug.