New Evidence of Beneficial Effects of Exercise for Cancer Patients, Survivors

Clinicians now have more evidence to support exercise recommendations for cancer patients and survivors.

 

A new study found that regular exercise—even 15 minutes per day—prolongs survival in men with prostate cancer. Other new research has shown that exercise reduces cancer-related fatigue among adult cancer survivors.

 

In what they say is the first study of the effect of physical activity after a diagnosis of prostate cancer on cancer-specific and overall mortality, Stacey Kenfield of the Harvard School of Public Health and Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Boston, and her fellow researchers reviewed data from the Health Professionals Follow-up Study on 2705 men with nonmetastatic prostate cancer. The results are published in the January 4 online issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

 

They found that any type of regular exercise was beneficial but the more vigorous, the greater the improvement in survival. Men who walked ≥90 minutes per week at a normal or very brisk pace had a 46% lower risk of all-cause mortality compared with those who walked for a shorter duration at a slower pace. Men who engaged in vigorous activity ≥3 hours per week had a 49% lower risk of all-cause mortality and a 61% reduction in prostate-cancer specific mortality compared with those with less than 1 hour per week of vigorous activity.

 

For cancer survivors, a meta-analysis by Justin C. Brown of the University of Connecticut, Storrs, and associates found that exercise interventions compared with usual care reduced cancer-related fatigue.

 

In the study reported in the January issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers, & Prevention, the researchers reviewed 44 studies including 3254 adult survivors of various types of cancer. The data showed that cancer-related fatigue levels improved in direct proportion to the intensity of resistance exercise. The benefits were greatest when the survivors were older or when the interventions were theoretically driven. Exercise interventions for adult cancer survivors, they say, “should be multi-dimensional and individualized according to health outcome and cancer type.”