Long-Term Favorable Effects of Physical Exercise on Burdensome Symptoms in the OptiTrain Breast Cancer Randomized Controlled Trial
Wiggenraad, Fleur; Bolam, Kate A.; Mijwel, Sara; van der Wall, Elsken; Wengström, Yvonne; Altena, Renske
(2020) Integrative Cancer Therapies, volume 19, pp. 1 - 14
(Article)
Abstract
Purpose: We evaluate longitudinal changes in symptom clusters and core burdensome symptoms in breast cancer patients who participated in the OptiTrain trial. Methods: 240 women were randomized to 16 weeks of supervised exercise (RT-HIIT or AT-HIIT) or usual care (UC) during adjuvant chemotherapy. Symptom clusters were composed using the Memorial
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Symptom Assessment Scale (MSAS), assessed at baseline, 16 weeks and 12 months later. Three symptom clusters were formed. Results: Three symptom clusters were identified: “emotional,” “treatment-related toxicity,” and “physical,” with core burdensome symptoms present over time. At 16 weeks, the reported burdens of “feeling sad” (RT-HIIT vs UC: effect size [ES] = −0.69; AT-HIIT vs UC: ES = −0.56) and “feeling irritable” (ES = −0.41 RT-HIIT; ES = −0.31 AT-HIIT) were significantly lower in both intervention groups compared with UC. At 12 months, the AT-HIIT group continued to have significantly lower scores for the core burdensome symptoms “feeling sad” (ES = −0.44), “feeling irritable” (ES = −0.44), and “changes in the way food tastes” (ES = −0.53) compared with UC. No between-group differences were found for physical symptoms. Conclusion: We identified 3 symptom clusters in breast cancer patients during and after adjuvant chemotherapy, composed of “emotional,” “treatment-related toxicity,” and “physical” symptoms. After treatment completion up to 12 months post-baseline, patients in the physical exercise groups reported lower symptom burden scores for emotional symptoms, compared with UC. Our findings indicate a preserved and long-term beneficial effect of physical exercise on self-reported emotional well-being in chemotherapy-treated breast cancer patients.
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Keywords: adjuvant chemotherapy, breast cancer, long-term effects, physical exercise, symptom burden, symptom cluster, Complementary and alternative medicine, Oncology, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't, Journal Article
ISSN: 1534-7354
Publisher: SAGE Publications Inc.
Note: Funding Information: The authors would like to thank the participants in the OptiTrain Trial, Karolinska University Hospital, for the use of their facilities, and Malin Backman for the collection of questionnaire data and supervision of the exercise sessions. The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Swedish Cancer Society (130452, CAN 2016/334 to YW), the Cancer Society of Stockholm (131242 161262 to YW), the Swedish Cancer and Traffic Accident Foundation (F-C-001225 to YW), the Strategic Area in Health Care Sciences at Karolinska Institutet (Fellowship to KAB), and the Swedish Society for Medical Research (SLS 50514 to Helene Rundqvist). The funders have no role in the study design, data collection or analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the article. Funding Information: The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Swedish Cancer Society (130452, CAN 2016/334 to YW), the Cancer Society of Stockholm (131242 161262 to YW), the Swedish Cancer and Traffic Accident Foundation (F-C-001225 to YW), the Strategic Area in Health Care Sciences at Karolinska Institutet (Fellowship to KAB), and the Swedish Society for Medical Research (SLS 50514 to Helene Rundqvist). The funders have no role in the study design, data collection or analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the article. Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2020.
(Peer reviewed)