Study reveals benefits of exercise for women with early-stage breast cancer

Women undergoing chemotherapy for early-stage breast cancer may see their fitness and self-esteem improve with regular exercise, a new Canadian study reports.?Breast cancer patients can exercise while

05 September 2007

Women undergoing chemotherapy for early-stage breast cancer may see their fitness and self-esteem improve with regular exercise, a new Canadian study reports.

?Breast cancer patients can exercise while they?re receiving chemotherapy and achieve meaningful benefits in terms of physical fitness, body composition and self-esteem,? said lead author Dr. Kerry Courneya, a professor in the Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation at the University of Alberta and Canada Research Chair in Physical Activity and Cancer.

Courneya and his colleagues explored the effects of resistance and aerobic exercise on quality of life, physical fitness and body composition in women receiving initial chemotherapy for early-stage breast cancer. The study, known as the Supervised Trial of Aerobic versus Resistance Training (START), is the largest to date to explore the effects of exercise during chemotherapy and one of the first to evaluate a regimen of resistance exercise.

Researchers divided 242 women into three groups: supervised resistance exercise three times weekly (82 women), supervised aerobic exercise three times weekly (78), and no aerobic or resistance exercise, also known as the ?usual care? group (82). The median duration of chemotherapy and exercise was 17 weeks. Participants were surveyed at the beginning and middle of chemotherapy and up to four weeks after completing treatment. Resistance exercise was found to be better than usual care for improving muscle strength, lean body mass and self-esteem, while aerobic exercise was better than usual care for improving aerobic fitness, self-esteem and body fat percentage. The exercise was found not to cause adverse side effects.

The study also resulted in an unexpected discovery: resistance exercise improved chemotherapy completion rates. The percentage of women who received 85 per cent or more of their recommended chemotherapy dose was 78 per cent in the resistance exercise group, 74.4 per cent in the aerobic exercise group and 65.9 per cent in the usual care group.

It is unclear why exercise may improve chemotherapy completion rates, but the authors speculate that exercise may cause an increase in white blood cell counts, which could allow chemotherapy treatments to continue on schedule. The authors caution that this finding should be replicated before it is considered reliable.

The study, which was funded by the Canadian Breast Cancer Research Alliance, has been published online on September 4 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the peer-reviewed journal of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the world?s leading professional society representing physicians who treat people with cancer.

Dr. Courneya?s study online at the Journal of Clinical Oncology website:
http://jco.ascopubs.org/cgi/gca?gca=JCO.2006.08.2024v1&sendit=Get+All+Checked+Abstract%28s%29

About Dr. Courneya?s Behavioural Medicine laboratory:
http://www.physedandrec.ualberta.ca/behavioural_lab.cfm

Dr. Courneya?s contact information:
Phone 492-1031; email: kerry.courneya@ualberta.ca