iStock.com/Jacob Wackerhausen
A recent study published in the Asia-Pacific Journal of Oncology Nursing explored whether the implementation of self-management interventions could reduce cancer treatment–related cardiotoxicities among survivors of breast cancer.
A team of researchers from China conducted the study and explained that cardiotoxicities induced from therapy can “lead to long-term cardiovascular complications that impair quality of life (QoL) and survival,” underscoring the importance of developing strategies to manage treatment-related toxicity for the support of cardiovascular health in patients with breast cancer throughout survivorship.
The investigators selected studies that were performed between January 2004 and November 2024 from six English-language databases. To further “assess the methodological quality and certainty of the evidence,” they used JBI appraisal tools and the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) framework in addition to meta-analyses and descriptive qualitative syntheses.
Eleven randomized controlled trials were selected from the databases, involving a total of 950 patients. The investigators divided the patients from the studies into a self-management intervention group (n=516) and a control group (n=434). The intervention group received either aerobic or resistance exercise interventions and the control group received care as usual.
Furthermore, the investigators highlighted the cardiotoxicity-related parameters that were analyzed in the research, including cardiorespiratory fitness, cardiac function, and biomarkers, which the investigators noted could all be “attenuated by exercise.”
According to the results, “the meta-analysis indicated that exercise interventions significantly improved VO2peak (MD = 2.71, 95% CI 1.23 to 4.20, P < 0.001) and left ventricular ejection fraction (MD = 1.80, 95% CI 0.06 to 3.54, P = 0.043), although heterogeneity was substantial.”
However, the researchers also highlighted that “the effectiveness of exercise on secondary outcomes remains uncertain” and that the “GRADE framework rated the certainty of the evidence as very low.”
In reflecting on the results, the study authors emphasized that “exercise has emerged as the most frequently employed self-management strategy for mitigating therapy-induced cardiotoxicity among breast cancer survivors.”
“Evidence has indicated that structured exercise may help attenuate cancer therapy-induced cardiotoxicity, with VO2peak emerging as a more sensitive marker than left ventricular ejection fraction,” they concluded.