Abstract P4-11-26: The importance of physical exercise in cardiovascular fitness in breast cancer survivors. A cross sectional study: WIM 2.0
Authors: Herrero Lucía Gil , Santamaría Marina Pollán , Jimenez Miguel Martín , Tarruella Sara López , Montealegre Mónica Castellanos , Barrio Soraya Casla 
Published: March 2022

Introduction: Cardiorespiratory Fitness (CRF) has been described as an independent factorassociated with better survival in Breast Cancer Survivors (BCS). In addition, an altered BodyComposition (BodComp) impacts in a worst prognosis and increase treatment side effects.Despite this, BCS present lower levels of CRF than women without previous history of breastcancer (BC) and around 3% of BCS are obese, with an average of 1.8 to 5.0 kg of weight gainduring chemotherapy treatments and weight keeps rising during hormonotherapy.Exercise has been proved as an effective tool to help BCS not only to reduce treatments sideeffects improving significantly CRF, but also, to allow controlling and improving BodCom duringand after treatments.However, it is not clear if active BCS could achieve similar values of CRF and BodCom than activehealthy women and the impact of a sedentary behavior in them. Purpose: To establish the impact of physical exercise in CRF and BodComp recovery in BCS withinthe last five years compared to women without a BC diagnosis. Material and Methods: in this cross-sectional study, women with and without BC were invitedinto a sport centre in Madrid, (Spain) to evaluate their general physical condition and bodycomposition. Participants were classified into four different groups: sedentary-BC, active-BC,sedentary healthy and active healthy (Sed-BCW, Act-BCW, Sed-HW, Act-HW, respectively).VO2max, speed level, isometric strength, lower body maximum strength, explosive strength andbalance were assessed with different physical test. Body composition was measured bybioimpedance.In terms of statistical analysis, analyses of variance (ANOVA) were used with continuousvariables to compare groups and post- hoc comparisons used Bonferroni test. Results: A total of ninety two women were recruited (23 in each group).In terms of VO2max, significant differences were found between active and sedentary BC (Difmean (ΔM)= 5.86, IC 95% 3.16 - 8.55; p&lt;0.001). No differences in VO2max were observed betweenthe active groups (ΔM = 0.42, IC 95% -2.26 to 3.12; p= 0.753). In terms of BodCom, it wasobserved significant differences in FM% comparing Act-BCW with Act-HW (ΔM= -11.57; IC 95%-16.80 - -6.33), Sed-BC (ΔM= -6.78; IC 95% -12.52 to -1.54) and Sed-HW (ΔM= -12.07; IC 95% -17.31 to -6.83). In terms of percentage lean mass (LM%), results are presented in (table 1).Active-BC showed significant better results than sedentary groups in other parameters of thephysical condition compared with sedentary women, but not with the Active healthy group(Table 1).Significant differences between Active-BC and sedentary groups were found regarding totalweight, water and visceral mass (p&lt;0,01 for all). Table 1. Mean differences, significance and CI 95% in physical and body composition variablesbetween groups.Act-BCW- Sed-BCWAct-BCW - Act-HWAct-BCW - Sed-HW6MWT (m)71.52**37.36 -105.68-3.04-37.20 - 31.1176.57**42.41 - 110.7235m (sec)-1.87*-3.44 - 0.300.17-1.40 - 1.74-2.39**-3.96 - -0.82Jump (cm)5.48**1.47 - 9.49-2.87-6.88 - 1.144.91*0.90 - 8.92Strength Index0.63**0.31 - 0.95-0.09-0.40 - 0.210.376*0.07 - 0.68LM(%)5.20*-1.62 - 8.780.72-2.86 - 4.38.59**3.72 - 13.45*=p&lt;0,05; **=p&lt;0,01. Conclusions: This study provide two main contributions related to the importance of physicalactivity in BC survivors: BC women who maintain an active lifestyle can achieve the same valuesin physical condition as active healthy women, and significant better values than the sedentarygroups. These results suggest than physical exercise might be a stronger determinant of bodycomposition than a previous history of BC.

Citation Format: Lucía Gil Herrero, Marina Pollán Santamaría, Miguel Martín Jimenez, Sara López Tarruella, Mónica Castellanos Montealegre, Soraya Casla Barrio. The importance of physical exercise in cardiovascular fitness in breast cancer survivors. A cross sectional study: WIM 2.0 [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2021 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; 2021 Dec 7-10; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2022;82(4 Suppl):Abstract nr P4-11-26.