count 298Key words: Exercise, prostate cancer, quality of life, fatigue, adverse effects
AbstractContext: Exercise for prostate cancer survivors could be beneficial. However, no systematic review across cancer stages and treatment types addressing potential benefits and harms exists to date.Objectives: Primarily, to assess the effects of exercise on cancer specific quality of life and adverse events in prostate cancer trials.
Evidence acquisition:We searched the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, MEDLINE, EMBASE, AMED, CINAHL, PsycINFO, SPORTDiscus and PEDro. We also searched grey literature databases, including trials registers. Searches were from database inception to March 2015.Standardised mean differences (SMD) were calculated for meta-analysis.
Evidence synthesis:We included 16 RCTs involving 1574 men with prostate cancer. Follow-up varied from just eight weeks to 12months. RCTs involved men with stages I-IV cancers. High risk of bias was frequently due to attrition and intervention adherence. Seven trials involving 912 men measured cancer specific quality of life. No significant effect on this outcome was found from pooling the data from these seven trials (SMD = 0.13, 95% CI = -0.08, 0.34, median follow-up 12 weeks). Sensitivity analysis of studies that were judged to be of high quality indicated a moderate positive effect estimate (SMD = 0.33, 95% CI = 0.08, 0.58, median follow-up 12 weeks). Similar beneficial effects were seen in cancer specific fatigue, submaximal fitness and lower body strength. We found no evidence of benefit for disease progression, cardiovascular health or sexual function. There were no deaths attributable to exercise interventions. Other serious adverse events (e.g. myocardial infarction) were equivalent to those seen in controls.
Conclusions:These results support exercise interventions for improving cancer specific quality of life, cancer specific fatigue, submaximal fitness and lower body strength.Patient summary: This review shows that exercise or physical activity interventions can improve quality of life, fatigue, fitness and function for men with prostate cancer.
BackgroundProstate cancer is the primary cause of years lived with cancer disability in the Americas, North- hypercalcaemia, spinal cord compression, pathological fractures) can also adversely affect health. [7,8] Several recent systematic reviews have examined the effects of exercise in cancer survivors, in terms of quality of life outcome [9,10], exercise behaviour [11] and effects on fatigue.[12] These reviews are an amalgamation of heterogeneous primary cancers. Indeed, most evidence comes from trials in breast cancer and as such cannot be generalised to men with prostate cancer. Further, exercise therapy appears beneficial in the short term, but little is known about dose, duration and longerterm effects of such therapy, including adverse effects over an extended follow-up. Finally, despite the potential health benefits for men with prostate cancer, few clinicians are aware of the role of...