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Exercise 'may extend cancer patient's lives'

Tuesday 21st June 2011

Exercise may extend the lives of patients who have been diagnosed with brain cancer, new findings suggest.

Research published online in the Journal of Clinical Oncology revealed that exercise improves how cancer patients feel during and after their treatments as well as potentially helping them live longer.

Senior author Lee W Jones, of the Duke Cancer Institute, said that exercise interventions should be further investigated in relation to the lessening of symptoms and its impact on progression and survival.

He continued that the major goal of his research is to detect why exercise leads to improvements in survival after a cancer diagnosis.

"It could also lead to novel studies where exercise is combined with certain cancer therapies to see if both interventions together are more effective at inhibiting cancer recurrence or progression, not just minimizing the adverse side effects of the cancer therapies," added Mr Jones.

This follows a study published in journal Cancer which found that providing cancer patients with access to their medical records could increase their satisfaction.

Written by Mathew Horton