Applying pre-participation exercise screening to breast cancer survivors: a cross-sectional study
Open accessAbstract
Purpose Clinical guidelines recommend that breast cancer (BrCa) survivors be prescribed exercise. However, clinicians often do not prescribe exercise citing the presence of multiple health issues found among cancer survivors. No study has examined the proportion of BrCa survivors that can be prescribed a community/home-based unsupervised exercise program safely and independently, without further medical investigations or supervision.Methods Participants included BrCa survivors who received treatment at a university healthcare system between 2009 and 2014. We applied previously identified published guidelines for health conditions that may impede BrCa survivors from completing a community/home-based exercise program. Logistic regression models were used to quantify the magnitude of the association between demographic and clinical characteristics and the ability to perform community/home-based exercise.Results Among 667 BrCa survivors, 65 to 75% was classified as able to complete community/home-based exercise as recommended by the clinical guidelines. Older age, black race, treatment with chemotherapy, and treatment with radiation were associated with the potential need for further medical evaluation prior to starting exercise.Conclusions A large proportion of BrCa survivors can be prescribed community/home-based exercise program safely and independently, without further medical investigations or supervision. Future research will be needed to determine how to identify the subset of BrCa survivors that may benefit from medical evaluation prior to starting exercise in a manner that does not interrupt clinical oncology workflow. Approximately 35% of BrCa survivors may benefit from medical evaluation prior to starting community/home-based exercise.
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Head and neck cancer survivors' need for a supervised exercise program at 6 months after active cancer therapy is 60%.
“The proportion of endometrial, colorectal, head and neck, and breast cancer survivors who would need a supervised program were 80%, 58%, 60%, and 35%, respectively.53,70-73”
From Exercise is medicine in oncology: Engaging clinicians to help patients move through cancer (2019) · cites this paper as [72]
Colorectal cancer survivors' need for a supervised exercise program at 6 months after active cancer therapy is 58%.
“The proportion of endometrial, colorectal, head and neck, and breast cancer survivors who would need a supervised program were 80%, 58%, 60%, and 35%, respectively.53,70-73”
From Exercise is medicine in oncology: Engaging clinicians to help patients move through cancer (2019) · cites this paper as [72]
Endometrial cancer survivors' need for a supervised exercise program at 6 months after active cancer therapy is 80%.
“The proportion of endometrial, colorectal, head and neck, and breast cancer survivors who would need a supervised program were 80%, 58%, 60%, and 35%, respectively.53,70-73”
From Exercise is medicine in oncology: Engaging clinicians to help patients move through cancer (2019) · cites this paper as [72]
Older age at diagnosis predicted the need for exercise supervision in survivors across all four tumor sites.
“Older age at diagnosis predicted the need for exercise supervision in survivors who had all 4 tumor sites.”
From Exercise is medicine in oncology: Engaging clinicians to help patients move through cancer (2019) · cites this paper as [72]
Breast cancer survivors' need for a supervised exercise program at 6 months after active cancer therapy is 35%.
“The proportion of endometrial, colorectal, head and neck, and breast cancer survivors who would need a supervised program were 80%, 58%, 60%, and 35%, respectively.53,70-73”
From Exercise is medicine in oncology: Engaging clinicians to help patients move through cancer (2019) · cites this paper as [72]
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Exercise is medicine in oncology: Engaging clinicians to help patients move through cancer
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- Authors
- Igwebuike, L. T., Zhang, X., Brown, J. C., & Schmitz, K. H.
- Affiliations
- Drexel University (US)
- The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (US)
- Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (US)
- Pennsylvania State University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Schmitz, Kathryn H.
- Venue
- Supportive Care in Cancer
- Published
- 2017-12-19
- Volume
- 26
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 1825-1831
- ISSN
- 0941-4355 (ISSN-L)
- 1433-7339
- PMC
- PMC5924412
- OpenAlex
- W2778978140
- Cited by
- 8
- References
- 44
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 1 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 2
- FWCI
- 0.36
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Supportive Care in Cancer (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health (7u54ca155850-06)
- National Cancer Institute (F31CA192560, K99CA218603, U54-CA155850, R21CA182767)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Oncology › Cancer survivorship and care
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Women's cancer prevention and management
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Oncology › Cancer Risks and Factors
- Keywords
- breast cancer survivors, home-based exercise, community-based exercise, exercise prescription, unsupervised exercise, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, old age, racial disparities, barriers to exercise
- MeSH terms
- Cancer Survivors, Breast Neoplasms, Cross-Sectional Studies, Exercise Therapy, Female, Humans, Mass Screening, Middle Aged, Early Detection of Cancer
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