Physical activity has been applied as an adjunctive therapy in the secondary prevention of many cancers, but very little is currently known clinically and mechanistically about the effects of physical activity and exercise on tumor itself. Based on recent evidence from pre-clinical studies, it is plausible to expect that changes in tumor blood flow and its heterogeneity, oxygenation, and metabolism due to exercise would increase the delivery of chemotherapy and other cancer drugs into the tumor increasing the efficacy of cancer treatment.
Twenty (20) newly diagnosed Breast cancer patients will be recruited to investigate whether these pre-clinical findings can be extended to humans to serve as an evidence-based proof-of-concept for the possible inclusion of exercise in the treatment of cancer during chemotherapy. To study the effect of acute physical exercise on tumor blood flow and its heterogeneity, supine bicycle exercise in a positron emission tomography (PET) scanner will be used to exercise Breast cancer patients. These experiments are additional measurements to their normal treatments, and no new interventional approaches will be conducted in this study.
The study consists of one fitness test assessment, and tumor blood flow measurements with PET at rest and during supine cycling exercise.
