Massage for Prostate Cancer-Related Fatigue (mPROSTATE)

With over 15.5 million cancer survivors today in the United States, increased attention is being given to quality of life (QOL) after cancer treatment. Cancer-related fatigue (CRF), "a persistent, subjective sense of physical, emotional, and/or cognitive exhaustion related to cancer or its treatment that is not proportional to recent activity" (National Comprehensive Cancer Network, accessed Oct2020), is the most common and one of the most devastating symptoms among patients with cancer. CRF occurs across the spectrum of cancer types and treatments and has a negative impact on all areas of function, including mood, physical function, work performance, social interaction, family care, cognitive performance, schoolwork, and community activities. CRF can persist for months or years after cancer therapy is completed. CRF has been designated a high-priority research area by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and is 1 of the 5 highest-priority research areas designated by the NCI Clinical Oncology Research. This study is a phase II, 3-arm, randomized comparison of single-blinded once-weekly Swedish Massage Therapy (SMT) vs. Light Touch (LT) Control vs. unblinded waitlist control (WLC) for 6 weeks. We chose once-a-week sessions for 6 weeks to match the length of our completed National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) trial of SMT vs. LT for breast cancer survivors with CRF. Subjects who complete SMT or LT will be interviewed in person, by telemedicine, or by telephone at 6 and 12 weeks after the last study visit in order to evaluate the sustained effects of SMT and LT. We hypothesize that SMT will have a clinically meaningful benefit in improving fatigue, mood, and quality of life (QOL) in Prostate Cancer (PCa) patients, and that this will correlate with favorable changes in physiological parameters that may underlie CRF. Demographic, medical, clinical, and biological characteristics will be compared between groups of subjects randomized to SMT, LT, or WLC. Any treatment group differences in PCa grade and time since completion of radiation therapy, or baseline Brief Fatigue Inventory (BFI) fatigue score, may affect treatment-related change in fatigue or biological measures related to inflammation, or the post-treatment duration of benefit. While groups are expected to be similar on these characteristics, any variable with a p ≤ 0.10 difference between groups will be considered as a candidate covariate or stratification variable for statistical tests of the study hypotheses.