Grant: Foundation Grant

My research program focuses on physical activity (PA) in cancer patients. Specifically, I am interested in how PA may help cancer patients prepare for treatments, cope with treatments, recover after treatments, and improve long-term survival. The long term goal of my research program is to reduce the negative impact of cancer by ensuring that all cancer patients have access to high quality exercise programs. Research has shown that PA improves fitness and quality of life in cancer survivors but clinical practice has not really changed. I have argued that the chances of PA being offered in clinical oncology practice would be greatly increased if PA was shown to improve survival. The overall aim of my proposed research program is to find out if PA can actually improve survival in cancer patients. I am proposing to study this question with 5 projects including: (a) the Alberta Moving Beyond Breast Cancer (AMBER) Study, which is the first study examining the associations between objective PA, fitness, and breast cancer survival in 1,500 newly diagnosed breast cancer patients, (b) the Colon Health and Life-Long Exercise Change (CHALLENGE) Trial, which is the first experimental study examining the effects of a 3 year exercise program on survival in 962 colon cancer patients, (c) the Intense Exercise for Survival (INTERVAL) Trial, which is the first experimental study examining the effects of a 2 year exercise program on survival in 866 patients with advanced prostate cancer, and (d) 2 smaller studies in rectal cancer patients receiving combined chemoradiation therapy and prostate cancer patients receiving no treatments. PA is a low cost, low risk intervention that improves fitness and quality of life in cancer survivors but it has not been put into practice to help cancer patients. If PA can be shown to improve cancer survival, it would likely be offered to all cancer patients in Canada and around the world as part of their standard care.