A new study has just uncovered the surprising results of how simple physical exercise can help individuals avoid nerve damage—frequent and, in some patients, long-lasting damage—when undergoing cancer treatment. The study results feature in an article by an interdisciplinary German research team coordinated by Dr. Fiona Streckmann of the University of Basel and German Sport University Cologne.
Historically, chemotherapy and newer immunotherapies are among the cancer treatments that damage nerves, leading to very serious symptoms that include pain, loss of balance, and numbness. Such side effects, known formally as chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy, can be devastating and, in many cases, become chronic. As many as 70% to 90% of patients receiving certain treatments, like oxaliplatin or vinca alkaloids, have reported such adverse effects, which may persist years after treatment ends.
Against this backdrop, the current study attempted to explore whether physical activity could contain these adverse effects. Recently published in JAMA Internal Medicine, the research recruited 158 cancer patients who were going to receive treatment with oxaliplatin or vinca alkaloids. Patients were randomized to usual care or two different exercise groups.
The groups exercised two times per week for 15-30 minutes for as long as the individual was receiving chemotherapy. One group received balance-provoking exercises on unstable ground; another group performed such exercises, combined with vibration plate training. Follow-up extended for five years to examine the effects on nerve damage and, more generally, on quality of life.
This was hope-giving. The exercise groups had a 50 to 70 percent less probability of developing CIPN, as compared to patients in the control group, in addition to other quality-of-life improvements. Besides that, patients in exercise groups also had fewer dose reductions, which are otherwise required in chemotherapy because of intolerable side effects. Of significance, this exercise regimen influenced a reduction in the rate of mortality in the subsequent 5 years after undergoing chemotherapy.
He further emphasized the importance of these results when he said, “With such enormous investments in CIPN, there is as of now no effective pharmacological treatment available for it. In the United States, such nerve damage therapy—associated chemotherapy—costs about $17,000 annually per patient, contrasted massively to exercise in a very optimistic way, as cost-effective and highly beneficial.”
This research group is currently developing guidelines for the clinical integration of such exercises, to provide hospitals with practical tools at the point of care in the support of patients with cancer. Lastly, a study underway in six children’s hospitals in Germany and Switzerland, entitled PrepAIR, seeks to prevent sensory and motor dysfunctions in pediatric patients exposed to neurotoxic chemotherapy.
Dr. Streckmann commented, “The potential of physical activity for the therapy of the side effects of cancer treatment is underestimated,” and he hopes these findings will bring more sports therapists into hospitals to maximize these benefits.
ANI
