PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Ronald Chow AU - Eduardo Bruera AU - Michael Sanatani AU - Leonard Chiu AU - Elizabeth Prsic AU - Gabriel Boldt AU - Michael Lock TI - Cancer-related fatigue—pharmacological interventions: systematic review and network meta-analysis AID - 10.1136/bmjspcare-2021-003244 DP - 2021 Sep 30 TA - BMJ Supportive & Palliative Care PG - bmjspcare-2021-003244 4099 - http://spcare.bmj.com/content/early/2021/12/14/bmjspcare-2021-003244.short 4100 - http://spcare.bmj.com/content/early/2021/12/14/bmjspcare-2021-003244.full AB - Introduction Cancer-related fatigue (CRF) is a very common symptom in patients with cancer, and one of the five areas of highest priority in cancer research. There is currently no consensus on pharmacologic interventions for treating CRF. The aim of this systematic review is to provide more clarity on which pharmacologic interventions may be most promising, for future clinical trials. The network meta-analysis provides the ability to compare multiple agents when no direct head-to-head trials of all agents have been performed.Methods Medline (PubMed), EMBASE and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials were searched up until 5 March 2021. Studies were included if they reported on a pharmacologic intervention for CRF. Standardised mean differences and corresponding 95% CIs were computed using a random-effects maximum-likelihood model.Results This review reports on 18 studies and 2604 patients, the most comprehensive review of pharmacologic interventions for CRF at the time of this publication. Methylphenidate, modafinil and paroxetine were superior to placebo. Methylphenidate and modafinil were equivalent to one another. Paroxetine was superior to modafinil.Conclusion Paroxetine should be further studied in future trials. As well, more safety data are needed on pharmacologic interventions.No data are available. Systematic review; data are available in published papers or via contact with authors.