Authors: Paulo Gustavo Bergerot, Cristiane Decat Bergerot, Jonas Ribeiro Gomes Silva, Marcio Almeida Paes, Janice Farias, Dr. Paulo Sergio Lages, William Hiromi Fuzita, Igor Alexandre Protzner Morbeck, Daniel Sobreira de Oliveira Buso, Gabriel dos Anjos, Augusto Portieri Prata, Ana Carolina Salles de M. Ferreira, Marcos V S Franca, Carolina Bezerra Patriota, Camila Donini Tapia, Douglas Manfroi de Souza, Daniel Vargas Pivato de Almeida, Murilo Buso, Narjust Florez, Enrique Soto Pérez de Celis
Published: 2023-06-04
DOI: 10.1200/jco.2023.41.16_suppl.12122
Source: Full article
12122 Background: Exercise has been shown to ameliorate the side effects of cancer therapy, improve quality of life, and may even enhance treatment response. Since immunotherapy is widely used and approved for over 18 indications, studies are needed to determine the effect of exercise on immunotherapy outcomes Additionally, there is a crucial need for understanding how to make such interventions cost-effective and accessible in low- and middle-income countries. We aimed to explore the feasibility and efficacy of a remote exercise program for patients receiving immunotherapy alone or in combination with chemotherapy in Brazil. Methods: This is a 12-week prospective study of a supervised remote exercise program. Patients diagnosed with any solid cancer receiving immunotherapy alone or in combination are eligible. The program is supervised using the WhatsApp and Vedius platforms and consists of resistance and aerobic exercises for 3 to 5 hours per week (4 to 6 days a week). Outcome measures include treatment-related symptoms (FACT-ICM, scale 0-100), fatigue (BFI, scale 0-90), and overall quality of life (FACT-G, scale 0-108). Descriptive statistics were generated, and RM-ANOVA were used to evaluate changes in outcome measures over time. Results: A total of 40 patients have been enrolled to date, with 87.8% of complete adherence. Participants had a mean age of 59 years (SD = 12.2) and were predominantly female (53.7%), white (68.3%), married (68.3%), and had a college degree or higher education (56.0%). Patients were mostly diagnosed with breast (24.4%) or kidney (22.0%) cancers; 63.4% of patients had stage IV disease. Notably, significant improvements in treatment-related symptoms (M1= 86.5, M2= 96.0, p = 0.001), fatigue (M1= 21.4, M2= 9.6, p = 0.001) and quality of life (M1= 87.5, M2= 98.6, p = 0.001) have been observed. Conclusions: To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine the feasibility and efficacy of a supervised remote exercise program among patients with cancer receiving immunotherapy in Latin America. Our findings suggest that this remote program has high adherence and may improve treatment-related symptoms, fatigue, and overall quality of life while providing a practical and easily accessible alternative to patients. This study will be validated in an upcoming randomized clinical trial.