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Abstract
Background Resistance training (RT) is an effective way to increase muscle mass but little is known about its role to prevent sarcopenia in advanced cancer. Furthermore, the preferred setting for this training is not known. Considering home is frequently the place of care and death preferred by cancer patients, it is important to find out whether this would also be the best training setting as opposed to the most common one, hospital.
Objectives We aimed to test if RT at home and in hospital is feasible (primary outcome) and safe in advanced cancer, with a view to inform a phase III trial.
Methods Phase II randomised controlled trial including adults (≥18 years) with incurable solid tumours, randomised into one of three arms: (1) supervised RT at home; (2) supervised RT in hospital; (3) standard care with information leaflet. Both training programmes were similar, ran one-to-one with therapists and planned to last 12 weeks (three sessions/week). Feasibility included adherence (proportion of completed sessions) and acceptability (proportion of completed exercises), compared using Fisher’s test.
Results We included 15 patients (53% men, median age 68), 5 per arm. The home intervention had higher adherence (49% vs 9% in hospital; p<0.001). Acceptability was similar (93% in home and 95% in hospital; p=0.179). No adverse events were recorded.
Conclusions RT is a safe intervention, more feasible at home than in hospital in advanced cancer. Ways to increase adherence to the home intervention could further improve its potential benefit.
Trial registration number NCT02930876.
- cancer
- home care
- hospital care
- quality of life
- rehabilitation
- supportive care
Data availability statement
Data are available upon request.
Statistics from Altmetric.com
Data availability statement
Data are available upon request.
Footnotes
Twitter @catarinaribeiroa
Contributors CR: concept, design, literature search, data acquisition, data analysis, manuscript preparation and review; RS: design, data acquisition, manuscript review; PC: concept, design, manuscript review; MM: concept, design, manuscript review; BG: concept, design, data analysis, manuscript review.
Funding This work was supported by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation as part of the DINAMO Project, which aimed to enhance advanced training and research to optimise home palliative care in Portugal (Principal Investigator—BG, Scientific Director—Irene J Higginson, other members—Pedro L Ferreira, Helder Aguiar, Ana F Lacerda, Vera P Sarmento, Duarte Soares, Rita Canário, Maja de Brito, Catarina Ribeiro, Diogo M Branco).
Competing interests None declared.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
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