Women Cancer Health Treatment

Women who have had surgery for breast cancer can lift weights to improve quality of life and gain a better sense of well-being, according to researchers here.
In a study of 86 women who were between four and 36 months past their primary treatment, those who were assigned to twice-weekly weight-training sessions had significantly better quality-of-life score and global psychological scores compared with controls, reported Kathryn H. Schmitz, Ph.D., of the University of Pennsylvania and colleagues at the University of Minnesota.

Previous studies have shown that aerobic exercise improves quality of life for breast cancer survivors, but whether weight training would offer a similar benefit in women who have recently undergone breast cancer therapy was unclear, the investigators wrote.

To see whether weight training could have positive effects on quality of life scores and depressive symptoms in breast cancer survivors, the authors recruited a convenience sample of survivors and randomly assigned them to treatment or control groups.
The primary study outcomes were changes in quality of life as determined by the cancer rehabilitation evaluation system (CARES) short form and in depressive symptoms as determined by the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale.

The women assigned to weight training performed variable resistance and free-weight exercises to strengthen muscles of the chest, back, shoulders, arms, buttocks, hips, and thighs. Participants were also taught stretching exercises to perform before and after each weight-training session.
Participants were supervised by fitness trainers, and were asked not to make major changes in their diets or in other aspects of their regular exercise programs during the study.

A total of 79 women were available for follow-up at six months. The authors found that the physical global quality-of-life score improved in the treatment group compared with the control group (standardized difference = 0.62, P =0.006), as did psychosocial global scores (standardized difference = 0.52, P =0.02).
There were no changes, however, in depressive symptom scores or in frequency of depression in either weight-trainers or controls.

The investigators also used Pearson correlation coefficients to evaluate associations between changes in body composition and strength and changes in the cancer rehabilitations scores.
They found that increases in upper body strength were correlated with both improvements in physical global score (r = 0.32; P Adapted from Today MedPage