New Study – Can physical exercise enhance the effect of chemotherapy against breast cancer?

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It is becoming increasingly common for patients with early breast cancer to receive medical treatment before undergoing surgery. The advantage of reversing the traditional order in which surgery always comes is that tumors are shrinking and subsequent surgery is not extensive. If there are no living cancer cells left in the tissue being operated on, this means that all types of breast cancer have been treated medically.

There are many studies that indicate that physical exercise plays an important role in the body’s defense against tumors. Exercise activates the immune system, combats fatigue and reduces common side effects of chemotherapy, he says Jana de Bonifacethe study’s principal investigator and associate professor in the Breast Surgery Group, Division of Molecular Medicine and Surgery.

In our study, we want to investigate whether physical exercise during preoperative chemotherapy can lead to more patients getting rid of breast cancer medically. If we can demonstrate that physical exercise has the potential to improve the effectiveness of preoperative chemotherapy in breast cancer, this is of great importance in treating other forms of cancer as well, she continues.

Studies start in September 2022 and the listing is expected to be completed in December 2025.

The study “Physical exercise during neo-adjuvant chemotherapy for breast cancer as a means to increase pathological complete response rates: the randomized Neo-ACT trial” was funded by the Swedish Research Council Clinical Therapy Research Funding.

Publishing

Physical exercise during neo-adjuvant chemotherapy for breast cancer as a means of increasing pathological complete response rates: experimental protocol for the Neo-ACT randomized trial.
De Boniface J, Altina R, Blacksmith Ringburg C, Bolam CA, Wingstrom Way
Plus One 2022; 17 (10): e0274804