A controlled randomized study examining the effects of exercise therapy on patients undergoing haematopoietic stem cell transplantation

Abstract

A haematopoietic SCT (HSCT) can cause severe side effects, which may have a profound impact on a patient's life both physically and psychologically. Some studies have shown that physical activity has positive effects for inpatients after an HSCT. Therefore, the question arises whether a controlled exercise programme right from the beginning of the conditioning phase could help contribute to a patient's physical and psychological recovery. To evaluate the different effects of specific, moderate physical activities on the physical and psychological condition of HSCT patients we performed a controlled randomized study with 64 inpatients undergoing an allogeneic or autologous HSCT. The patients were randomly assigned to two groups. Although the training group took part in a specific programme of exercise therapy twice a day throughout the entire hospitalization phase, patients in the control group were offered the hospital's standard mobilization programme. The results of this study showed significant differences in favour of the training group regarding strength, endurance, lung function and quality of life. However, further studies are needed to confirm these results.

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].…”

“…Better effects of AE than UC on muscle strength was reported in five studies; Baumann and colleagues [29] for isometric quadriceps muscle strength (10 % ↓ versus 24 % ↓; p=0.002); Monga and colleagues [43] for time to complete a five repetition sit to stand test (1.3 sec ↓ versus 0.4 sec ↑; p<0.001); Segal and colleagues [40] for 8RM chest press (1.3 kg ↑ versus 2.5 kg ↓; p=0.006);…”

“…A few trials included some other cancer diagnoses, such as bowel or colon cancer [30, 31, 34, 37-40, 42, 43]. Six trials included patients with various haematological malignancies, mainly acute or chronic leukaemia or lymphomas, undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplants (HSCT) [29,33,36,41]. Only one trial included patients with advanced stage IV cancer undergoing palliative cancer treatment.…”

“…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.…”

“…The majority of trials had small sample sizes; eight trials had less than 50 participants [29, 31-34, 41, 43, 44]. Four trials were feasibility trials [29,32,34,42].…”