Exercise Shows Survival Benefit for Breast Cancer Patients

A new analysis from the OptiTrain clinical trial reveals that high-intensity exercise, particularly with a resistance training component, significantly lowers the risk of death for breast cancer survivors over an eight-year period. The findings, presented at the 2024 European Society for Medical Oncology Annual Congress, suggest that resistance-based exercise outperforms both high-intensity aerobic exercise and standard care in improving long-term survival outcomes for women treated for breast cancer.

In the trial, 240 women with stage I-III breast cancer undergoing chemotherapy were divided into three groups. Two groups followed 16 weeks of high-intensity exercise, with one focusing on resistance training and the other on aerobic exercise. A third group received standard care without any structured exercise. The women were monitored for five years with ongoing support that included physical activity guidance and gym access.

Earlier results, published in 2019, demonstrated that both exercise groups showed improvements in muscle strength, cardiovascular fitness, and overall quality of life, along with reductions in cancer-related fatigue. However, the new long-term data, gathered from Swedish health registries, show that resistance training offered a particularly strong benefit. In crude and partially adjusted analyses, it was found to reduce the risk of death by 82% compared to usual care. Although the benefit was less clear when fully adjusting for factors like age and tumor characteristics, resistance training continued to show a survival advantage.

Additionally, resistance training was associated with a reduced risk of invasive breast cancer recurrence. This benefit persisted even after accounting for several variables, such as menopausal status and chemotherapy regimen. Interestingly, neither the high-intensity aerobic exercise group nor the standard care group showed significant effects on recurrence rates.

The research team also conducted a pooled analysis across three other studies, finding consistent trends that exercise improves overall survival. However, none of the studies showed a strong link between exercise and a reduced risk of breast cancer recurrence, though trends suggested a potential benefit.