Cancer-related fatigue is a multidimensional symptom that can remain severe despite rest and can substantially affect daily function in advanced cancer. This conceptual article examines how inflammatory and metabolic signals can be integrated with experienced fatigue in palliative and oncology care without treating biomarkers as direct measures of symptom severity. The synthesis supports a conditional interpretation: inflammatory biomarkers may strengthen or weaken particular clinical explanations when considered longitudinally and in context, but they do not establish the cause or intensity of an individual patient's fatigue. Nursing assessment therefore remains anchored in direct symptom evaluation, functional impact, temporal change, treatment context, and competing contributors. A proposed interpretation framework developed later in the article uses concordance and discordance between symptom and laboratory information to guide further assessment rather than to assign biomarker-based fatigue categories.
