2127P - Long-term yoga reduces the side effects of systemic therapies and improves arm symptoms in the breast cancer patients

Background

Yoga has gained more attention worldwide in the last decade and shown the potential to improve physiological and psychological health in various disease conditions. Studies on breast cancer (BC) survivors showed mild to moderate effects within one-month to six-month on various parameters. Cancer treatment-related side effects are often related with functional as well as symptomatic scales. Therefore, we have conducted a randomized control study to find out the effect of long-term yogic intervention on symptom and functional scale in patients undergoing treatment.

Methods

This study was approved by the institutional ethics committee. The current study consisted of 96 BC stage II/III patients receiving cancer treatments who were randomly divided into two groups: Group-I (non-yoga) and Group-II (yoga). Group-II was advised to perform yoga 5 days per week for 48 weeks and was monitored regularly by video or phone calls. At different time points (T0 (baseline), T1 (16th week), T2 (32nd week), and T3 (48th week), we collected the breast cancer specific questionnaire (EORTC-BR23), which consisted of various functional scales (body image, sexual functioning, sexual enjoyment, future perspective) and symptomatic scales (systemic therapy side effects, breast symptoms, arm symptoms, upset by hair loss), and compared them between groups as well as within group.

Results

Out of 96 total patients, 82 were analyzed for T0-T3 (40 in group-I and 42 in group-II). In groups I and II, the mean age was 47.67±11.68 and 43.11±9.39, respectively. Yogic intervention resulted in a significant improvement in arm symptoms and side effects from T0 to T3 (p<0.001) and T1 to T3 (p<0.01) in group II, while group I also improved from T0 to T3 (p<0.05). The most significant difference was observed in Group-I (T0) vs. Group-II (T3). There was no significant difference observed in upset by hair loss, body image, breast symptoms, or future perspective.

Conclusions

The duration of yoga positively correlated with the systematic therapy side effects and improved their arm symptoms. This suggested that yogic intervention during therapy could be an effective complementary therapy.

Clinical trial identification

Editorial acknowledgement

Legal entity responsible for the study

The authors.

Funding

Has not received any funding.

Disclosure

All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.