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. 2023 Jan 24;30(2):1538-1545.
doi: 10.3390/curroncol30020118.

Personalized Prehabilitation Improves Tolerance to Chemotherapy in Patients with Oesophageal Cancer

Grigorios Christodoulidis  1 , Laura J Halliday  2 , Athina Samara  1 , Neel Bhuva  3 , Won-Ho Edward Park  4 , Krishna Moorthy  2   4
Affiliations

Personalized Prehabilitation Improves Tolerance to Chemotherapy in Patients with Oesophageal Cancer

Grigorios Christodoulidis et al. Curr Oncol. .

Abstract

Background: Prehabilitation programmes aim to optimise patients before and after cancer treatment including surgery. Previous studies in surgical patients demonstrate that prehabilitation improves pre-operative fitness and overcomes the negative impact of neoadjuvant chemotherapy on fitness. The aim of this study was to assess the impact of prehabilitation on the tolerance of neoadjuvant chemotherapy in patients with oesophageal cancer.

Methods: Patients with oesophageal or gastroesophageal junction (GOJ) cancer from two oncology centres were retrospectively included in the present comparative cohort study; one provided a multimodal prehabilitation programme and one did not offer any prehabilitation. Tolerance of chemotherapy, defined as completion of the full chemotherapy regime as per protocol, was compared between the two groups.

Results: In terms of participants, 92 patients were included in this study, 47 patients in the prehabilitation cohort and 45 in the control cohort. Compared with the control group, the prehabilitation group demonstrated an improved rate of chemotherapy completion (p = 0.029). In multivariate analysis, participation in prehabilitation was significantly associated with an improved rate of chemotherapy completion.

Conclusion: The findings of this exploratory study suggest that prehabilitation is associated with better tolerance for chemotherapy. Further research is needed to establish the long-term impact of prehabilitation on oncological outcomes.

Keywords: chemotherapy; gastroesophageal junction cancer; oesophageal cancer; prehabilitation; radiotherapy.

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Conflict of interest statement

Krishna Moorthy is the co-founder of Onkohealth Ltd. A company that provides digital prehabilitation and supportive care to cancer patients across the NHS. The other authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Study participant flow chart.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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