Effects of exercise on the quality of life in breast cancer patients: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials
Xinyan Zhang1 & Yuxiang Li1 & Dongling Liu1. Supportive Care in Cancer 2018
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Effects of exercise on the quality of life in breast cancer patients: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials
Xinyan Zhang1 & Yuxiang Li1 & Dongling Liu1. Supportive Care in Cancer 2018
Purpose The purpose of this study was to conduct a systematic review to assess the effect of exercise on the quality of life among people with breast cancer.
Methods We conducted a systematic review using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines.The Cochrane Library, PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, CINAHL, and four Chinese data bases were searched for studies published until January 2018. The review included all randomized controlled trials that evaluated the effect of exercise on quality of life compared with that of usual care for people with breast cancer. Two reviewers independently assessed the quality of all the included studies using the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions.
Results In total, 36 studies (3914 participants) met the inclusion criteria. We divided the exercise into three modes: aerobic, resistance, and a combination of aerobic and resistance. All three modes of exercise intervention showed a significant effect on quality of life between groups.
Conclusions Exercise is a safe and effective method of improving the quality of life in patients with breast cancer. In particular, combined training was associated with a significant improvement in quality of life. In future research, more high-quality, multicenter trials evaluating the effect of exercise in breast cancer patients are needed.
Main findings
- 22 studies reported a significant effect of aerobic exercise on the QOL in patients with breast cancer compared with that of patients in the control group.
- Five studies evaluated yoga in people with breast cancer and found that yoga had a significant effect on QOL.
- Overall, these results indicate that the effect of aerobic training on QOL in patients with breast cancer is beneficial.
- These results indicate that resistance training in patients with breast cancer is safe and has beneficial effect on QOL.
- Combined training in patients with breast cancer was safe and beneficial for QOL.
- Twenty-two of the 25 studies reported a significant effect of aerobic exercise on QOL in patients with breast cancer compared with that of the control group. Seven of the eight studies reported a significant effect of resistance exercise on QOL in patients with breast cancer compared with that of the control group. All seven studies reported a significant effect of combined training on the QOL in patients with breast cancer compared with that of the control group. Future research should be directed at the effects of combined exercise on QOL in patients with breast cancer. Better intervention adherence was associated with significantly improved fatigue, physical well-being, and QOL. Various incentive policies were taken to reduce the dropout rate, such as recording minutes of activity, recording steps using a pedometer, telephone meetings, group meetings, face to-face counseling sessions, video conference sessions, and one-on-one training.
- The limitations of this systematic review should be noted. Some studies do not report adverse events and there is a need to explore the adverse effects of exercise among breast cancer patients in future research. Second, some studies did not provide supervised exercise.
- They conclude that exercise is safe and effectively improves QOL in patients with breast cancer. In particular, combined training produced a positive effect on QOL and no adverse events were reported with this multimodal intervention.
