The effects of an individualized exercise intervention on body composition in breast cancer patients undergoing treatment

Abstract

CONTEXT AND OBJECTIVE: Changes in metabolism have been reported in the majority of patients undergoing cancer treatment, and these are usually characterized by progressive change in body composition. The effects of aerobic exercise programs to combat the cancer and cancer treatment-related side effects, which include the negative changes in body composition, have been extensively reported in the literature. However, few resistance exercise intervention studies have hypothesized that breast cancer patients might benefit from this type of exercise. The purpose of this study was to determine whether exercise protocols that emphasize resistance training would change body composition and strength in breast cancer patients undergoing treatment. DESIGN AND SETTING: Randomized controlled trial, at the Campus Recreation Center and Rocky Mountain Cancer Rehabilitation Institute of the University of Northern Colorado, and the North Colorado Medical Center. METHODS: Twenty inactive breast cancer patients were randomly assigned to a 21-week exercise group (n = 10) or a control group (n = 10). The exercise group trained at low to moderate intensity for 60 minutes on two days/week. The primary outcome measurements included body composition (skinfold method) and muscle strength (one repetition maximum). RESULTS: Significant differences in lean body mass, body fat and strength (p = 0.004, p = 0.004, p = 0.025, respectively) were observed between the groups at the end of the study. CONCLUSION: The results suggest that exercise emphasizing resistance training promotes positive changes in body composition and strength in breast cancer patients undergoing treatment.

Effect of physical exercise on muscle mass and strength in cancer patients during treatment—A systematic review

“…Of these, three trials used aerobic exercise (AE) alone { [29];Mello, 2003 #17;Monga, 2007 #7}, while seven trials used AE and resistance exercise (RE) in a combined intervention (CAE) [30][31][32][33][34][35][36]. Four trials compared AE or RE against UC [37][38][39][40].One trial compared two different RE interventions (three or five days per week) against usual care [41].…”

“…Two trials reported better effect on muscle mass for patients randomised to CAE compared with UC. In Battaglini and colleagues [31], the CAE group (exercise three days per week for six weeks) increased their lean body mass (LBM) compared to patients in the UC group ( 3.1 % ↑ versus 0.2 % ↓; p=0.004). In Coleman and colleagues [32], the CAE group (exercise two days per week for eight weeks) increased LBM while the UC group lost LBM (0.4 % ↑versus 0.4 % ↓; p<0.01).…”

“…Muscle mass was reported in only six trials, and except for two trials involving HSCT patients [32,41], these were conducted on patients with breast cancer or prostate cancer [31,34,37,42]. Overall, the tendency in these six trials was that the experimental groups (either AE, RE or CAE) maintained or modestly improved muscle mass from pre to post-test while the CG reduced muscle mass.…”

“…For muscle strength outcomes, moderate to large effects were demonstrated in the trials on breast and prostate cancer patients [30,31,[37][38][39][40] and in trials on HSCT patients [29,32,33,36] but not in patients with advanced stage IV cancer [35], where effects on grip strength were small.…”

“…Nine of the trials reported data analysis by using intention-to-treat principles [29, 30, 32-36, 38, 40]. The majority of trials described one primary outcome, which was muscle mass or muscle strength in only two trials [31,44].…”