Abstract 217P
Background
The positive effects of physical activity (PA) and exercise during and after cancer treatment are well established. Nonetheless, breast cancer patients often reduce their PA during the cancer treatment. Exercise interventions have been shown to counteract this behaviour. This review investigated the impact of exercise interventions on the PA behaviour of breast cancer patients in the longer run.
Methods
To include all relevant studies, a systematic search was conducted in four databases for studies with aerobic, resistance, or combined training interventions in breast cancer patients in which PA was assessed several months after completion of the study intervention. Standardized mean differences (SMDs) and were calculated using random-effect models.
Results
The systematic review included 27 studies with 4,120 participants, of which 11 studies with 1,545 participants had appropriate data to be included in the meta-analysis. Most exercise interventions were supervised and PA was mainly self-reported. Exercise interventions tended to be sustainable in terms of improving the PA behaviour beyond the end of the intervention: The exercise interventions showed a medium-sized significant effect on moderate to vigorous PA up to six months (SMD=0.39, 95% confidence interval: [0.07, 0.70]) and a small, non-significant effect on total PA up to 60 months after the intervention (SMD=0.29, [-0.31, 0.90]). The comparison of objective and subjective PA assessment as well as supervised and non-supervised exercise interventions and different exercise types revealed no conclusive findings due to the small number of RCTs.
Conclusions
Breast cancer patients increased their PA behaviour also beyond the end of the exercise interventions, but the observed effects were only small to moderate and diminished over time. Future studies should clarify, how sustainability of a healthy PA level after exercise interventions can be improved.
Legal entity responsible for the study
The authors.
Funding
Has not received any funding.
Disclosure
All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.