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Improvements in strength and agility measures of functional fitness following a telehealth-delivered home-based exercise intervention in endometrial cancer survivors

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Abstract

Purpose

Endometrial cancer is strongly linked to obesity and inactivity; however, increased physical activity has important benefits even in the absence of weight loss. Resistance (strength) training can deliver these benefits; yet few women participate in resistance exercise. The purpose of this study was to describe both physiological and functional changes following a home-based strength training intervention.

Methods

Forty post-treatment endometrial cancer survivors within 5 years of diagnosis were enrolled in a pilot randomized trial, comparing twice-weekly home-based strength exercise to wait list control. Participants conducted the exercises twice per week for 10 supervised weeks with 5 weeks of follow-up. Measures included DXA-measured lean mass, functional fitness assessments, blood biomarkers, and quality of life outcomes.

Results

On average, participants were 60.9 years old (SD = 8.7) with BMI of 39.9 kg/m2 (SD = 15.2). At baseline, participants had 51.2% (SD = 6.0) body fat, which was not different between groups. Improvements were seen in the 30-s chair sit to stand (d = .99), the 30-s arm curl (d = .91), and the 8-ft up-and-go test (d = .63). No changes were measured for HbA1c or C-reactive protein. No changes were observed for flexibility (chair sit and reach, back scratch tests), 6-min walk test, maximum handgrip test, anxiety, depression, fatigue, or self-efficacy for exercise.

Conclusions

Home-based muscle-strengthening exercise led to favorable and clinically relevant improvements in 3 of 7 physical function assessments. Physical function, body composition, blood biomarkers, and patient-reported outcomes were feasible to measure. These fitness improvements were observed over a relatively short time frame of 10 weeks.

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Data availability

Due to the nature of this research, participants of this study did not agree for their data to be shared publicly, so supporting data is not available.

Code availability

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all the participants from this study, without which this work would not have been possible. The project was supported by the Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) program, through the NIH National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), grant UL1TR002373. 

Funding

PI (Bailey) UW Comprehensive Cancer Center Support (Sponsor DHHS, PHS, NIH)—2P30CA014520-44.

PI (Sugden Institutional Research Grant IRG) (Sponsor American Cancer Society Inc.)—IRG-15–213-51.

PI (Cadmus-Bertram) Feasibility Trial of Home-based Strength Training in Endometrial Cancer Survivors (Sponsor DHHS, PHS, NIH)—1R03CA230965-01A1.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Kinesiology, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 1300 University Ave, Bardeen 253A, Madison, WI, 53706, USA

    Jessica S. Gorzelitz, Kelli Koltyn & Lisa Cadmus-Bertram

  2. Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Doctor of Physical Therapy Division, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

    Stefanie Stoller

  3. Department of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI, USA

    Erin Costanzo

  4. Departments of Biostatistics & Medical Informatics, and Statistics, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI, USA

    Ronald Gangnon

  5. Department of Population Health Sciences, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI, USA

    Ronald Gangnon & Amy Trentham Dietz

  6. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Division of Gynecologic Oncology, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI, USA

    Ryan J. Spencer & Joanne Rash

Authors
  1. Jessica S. Gorzelitz
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  2. Stefanie Stoller
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  3. Erin Costanzo
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  4. Ronald Gangnon
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  5. Kelli Koltyn
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  6. Amy Trentham Dietz
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  7. Ryan J. Spencer
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  8. Joanne Rash
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  9. Lisa Cadmus-Bertram
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by Jessica Gorzelitz, supervised directly by Lisa Cadmus-Bertram. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Jessica Gorzelitz and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lisa Cadmus-Bertram.

Ethics declarations

Ethics approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This study was approved by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Health Sciences Institutional Review Board (Protocol #2018–0953) and by the Carbone Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Protocol Review and Monitoring Committee (Protocol UW18013). Prior to enrollment of the first participant, the study was registered at clinicaltrials.gov (NCT03722030).

Consent to participate

Written informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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N/A

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no competing interests.

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Gorzelitz, J.S., Stoller, S., Costanzo, E. et al. Improvements in strength and agility measures of functional fitness following a telehealth-delivered home-based exercise intervention in endometrial cancer survivors. Support Care Cancer 30, 447–455 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-021-06415-2

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