{"id":353658,"date":"2026-03-29T12:28:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T12:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/353658\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T12:28:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T12:28:09","slug":"fitness-and-chemotherapy-outcomes-in-breast-cancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/353658\/","title":{"rendered":"Fitness And Chemotherapy Outcomes In Breast Cancer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>HIGHER FITNESS LEVELS and favourable body composition are associated with improved chemotherapy tolerance in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.emjreviews.com\/radiology\/news\/ai-predicts-breast-cancer-recurrence-using-preoperative-mammograms\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">breast\u00a0cance<\/a>r, according to findings from a large\u00a0prospective\u00a0cohort study.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Fitness Levels\u00a0and\u00a0Chemotherapy Outcomes\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Limited evidence has previously addressed how modifiable lifestyle factors influence chemotherapy delivery and effectiveness. In this study, researchers examined associations between\u00a0health-related\u00a0fitness, physical activity, and sedentary behaviour with relative dose intensity and pathologic complete response in patients with newly diagnosed breast cancer receiving neoadjuvant or adjuvant chemotherapy.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The analysis included 890 participants from a prospective cohort, with fitness and body composition measured shortly after diagnosis. Outcomes were derived from medical records, and logistic regression was used to assess associations with relative dose intensity and pathologic complete response.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Body Composition\u00a0and\u00a0Relative Dose Intensity\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Among participants, 726 individuals,\u00a0representing\u00a081.6%, achieved a relative dose intensity of 85% or higher. Higher relative dose intensity was negatively associated with markers of adiposity, including body mass index, waist circumference, waist to hip ratio, and fat mass percentage.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Conversely, favourable body composition measures, such as higher lean body mass percentage and lean to fat mass ratio, were positively associated with achieving higher relative dose intensity. In addition, greater cardiorespiratory fitness and muscular strength\u00a0demonstrated\u00a0positive dose response relationships with chemotherapy tolerance,\u00a0indicating\u00a0that patients with higher aerobic capacity and strength were more likely to receive\u00a0optimal\u00a0chemotherapy dosing.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Limited Associations\u00a0with\u00a0Treatment Response\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>With regard to\u00a0treatment response, fewer consistent associations were\u00a0identified. A higher\u00a0lean-to\u00a0fat mass ratio was positively associated with pathologic complete response. In contrast, body mass index and\u00a0self-reported\u00a0physical activity showed negative associations with this outcome.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Overall, the findings suggest that aerobic fitness, muscular strength, and body composition may play\u00a0an important role\u00a0in\u00a0determining\u00a0chemotherapy tolerability, while their influence on treatment response appears less pronounced. These results highlight the potential relevance of modifiable lifestyle factors in supporting treatment delivery among patients with breast cancer.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Reference\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Kokts-Porietis RL et al.\u00a0Associations of health-related fitness and physical activity with chemotherapy outcomes in breast cancer. British Journal of Cancer. 2026;\u00a0https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1038\/s41416-026-03384-3.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Featured image: Stockphotodirectors on Adobe Stock<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HIGHER FITNESS LEVELS and favourable body composition are associated with improved chemotherapy tolerance in\u00a0breast\u00a0cancer, according to findings from&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":353659,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[134,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-353658","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}