Presentation description

Purpose: The purpose of this pilot study is to show the feasibility of assigning breast cancer patients receiving chemotherapy to exercise at a specific time of day (e.g., AM vs PM)

Methods: Our goal is to recruit 40 women with stage I-III breast cancer, and an ECOG ≤ 2, who are about to start or just started (e.g., 1 cycle) breast cancer chemotherapy. Breast medical oncology clinic lists at HCI will be pre-screened to identify potentially eligible participants. Interested and potentially eligible patients will be consented and screened for eligibility. Eligible participants will be randomized 1:1 to an exercise timing group. Exercise start times for the AM and PM group will be 5-10am and 3-8pm, respectively. After randomization, participants will take part in HCI's exercise oncology program, the Personal Optimism with Exercise Recovery program (POWER), to complete two physical and medical assessments (pre and post-study) and engage in a 4-week exercise intervention. At the end of the study participants will complete a meal timing and sleeping habits survey, and an exit survey for feedback on the intervention. The exercise intervention will consist of 2 weekly, personalized, home-based resistance training sessions, supervised via telehealth, and 90-minutes of moderate-intensity, home-based unsupervised aerobic exercise. Participants will submit weekly aerobic exercise logs to the study team.
Current Status: This pilot study has been open for enrollment since July 5th. My role has been to screen, consent, and recruit patients.
Potential Impact: It is hypothesized that PM exercise helps improve physical function and reduce cancer treatment side-effects greater than AM exercise. If we can show that exercising at a specific time of day serves utility in attenuating treatment side-effects, then patients will have a better experience with cancer treatments.