In the beginning, the project focused on the setup of the EFFECT randomized clinical trial as well as the PERSPECTIVE study. The first patient for the EFFECT trial was enrolled in January 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic caused some challenges in the recruitment and execution of the studies. Nevertheless, it also enabled us to be creative to get into contact with eligible patients and obtain the desired data for both EFFECT and PERSPECTIVE. All in all, the data for PERSPECTIVE was complete by March 2022 and for EFFECT the final patient completed the exercise program in May 2023.
The results from EFFECT demonstrate that exercise significantly reduces physical fatigue and improves health-related quality of life of patients living with MBC. Moreover, other benefits include improvements in physical fitness, physical, role (i.e. functioning in occupational and social roles), and social functioning, as well as reduction in pain, dyspnea, and sexual health issues. Besides the beneficial effects, we demonstrated that this non-pharmacological intervention is cost-effective. A biobank has been established and biomarker analyses are currently ongoing.
The PERSPECTIVE study revealed that while patients generally viewed exercise positively, they also faced significant barriers to starting exercise such as fatigue, pain, dyspnea, uncertainties about exercise routines, program accessibility, and costs. Interviews with 22 stakeholders, including healthcare professionals, policy makers, and exercise professionals, highlighted systemic issues such as lack of routine exercise discussions, inadequate knowledge and collaboration, and limited insurance coverage.
We have widely disseminated our results. They were presented at important conferences (e.g. the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium), in publications (including the high impact journals Nature Medicine and Journal of Clinical Oncology) and at the project’s closing symposium taking place on June 29, 2024. We have used our findings to create specific recommendations about integrating exercise in the care or patients with metastatic breast cancer and a brochure for patients and patient advocates, which can be downloaded from the project’s website.
