Abstract P5-21-04: Clinical intervention trial with physical activity during chemotherapy for primary breast cancer: Different effects of endurance and resistance training on physical fitness and quality of life
Authors: Mundhenke Christoph , Burkhardt Weisser , Jonat Walter , Dürkop Juliane , Keller Lisa , Falk Arne , Schmidt Thorsten 
Published: May 2015

Aim: Previous findings suggest that physical activity during breast cancer treatment can reduce side effects and improve clinical outcome. However, physical training is not performed to the same degree as e.g. for coronary heart disease. In part, this is due to the lack of studies comparing different forms of exercise on their effectiveness, which aggravates the composition of exercise-guidelines. As a contribution for this goal, this intervention study compares the effects of moderate endurance and moderate resistance training on physical fitness, fatigue, concentration and the quality of live.

Methods: In a randomized, controlled intervention trial 12-week supervised endurance (ET) or resistance training (RT) were compared with standard usual care (UC) in patients with primary breast cancer during adjuvant or neoadjuvant chemotherapy. 78 female patients were enrolled. Endpoints were muscular strength (NM), endurance (Watt/kg/bodyweight in kg) and well during endurance stress test (Borg scala), quality of live (QL) (EORTC QLQ C30+BR23) before and after 12 weeks of treatments. 14 out of 81 patients dropped out (due to chemotherapy related side effects or withdrawal of consent). 67 patients are fully evaluable.

Results: RT (vs. UC) was superior for improving strength (p: 0.015). A trend towards improvement in strength was observed in the (ET vs. UC) (p:0.149; n.s.).All groups decrease in the endurance stress test /Watt/kg/bodyweight in kg) after 12 weeks (RT: p: n.s; ET: p: n.s; UC: p: n.s.), however the maximal endurance lost in Watt was greatest in UC (p: 0.001). The subjective perceived exertion at 100 watts remained stable in the RT (p: n.s.) and decreased in ET (p:0.02) and in UC (n.s.).

In the RT group quality of life score improved significantly during 12 weeks of intervention (p: 0.011). There is also a trend for improvement of QL in the ET group (p: &gt;0.05; n.s.). The UC group showed a decreased QL. Conclusion: Important improvements in strength, endurance and quality of life from exercise training in breast cancer patients receiving chemotherapy are demonstrated in this trial. RT showed a superior improvement in physical strength, in subjective perceived exertion and quality of life over ET and UC. The beneficial results suggest that physical intervention (including a resistance intervention) should be implemented into standard of care during adjuvant chemotherapy for breast cancer. A combined intervention of endurance and resistance intervention may be optimal and needs to be further prospectively evaluated.

Citation Format: Christoph Mundhenke, Weisser Burkhardt, Walter Jonat, Juliane Dürkop, Lisa Keller, Arne Falk, Thorsten Schmidt. Clinical intervention trial with physical activity during chemotherapy for primary breast cancer: Different effects of endurance and resistance training on physical fitness and quality of life [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Thirty-Seventh Annual CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium: 2014 Dec 9-13; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(9 Suppl):Abstract nr P5-21-04.