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HYPOTHESIS AND THEORY article

Front. Oncol.
Sec. Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention
Volume 14 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fonc.2024.1432899
This article is part of the Research Topic Promotion of Quality of Life in Oncology Patients And Survivors Through Physical Activity View all 4 articles

An Integrated Framework for the Study of Exercise Across the Postdiagnosis Cancer Continuum

Provisionally accepted
Kerry S. Courneya Kerry S. Courneya 1*Margaret L. McNeely Margaret L. McNeely 1Christopher M. Booth Christopher M. Booth 2Christine M. Friedenreich Christine M. Friedenreich 3
  • 1 University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
  • 2 Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
  • 3 Alberta Health Services, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Exercise plays many important roles across the entire cancer continuum that have been described in previous frameworks. These frameworks, however, have generally provided a simplified description of the roles of exercise postdiagnosis. The modern cancer treatment landscape has become complex and often consists of multiple lines of multimodal treatments combined concurrently and/or sequentially and delivered over many months or years. This complexity requires a more multifaceted and targeted approach to the study of exercise after a cancer diagnosis. Here, we propose a new integrated framework-Exercise Across the Postdiagnosis Cancer Continuum (EPiCC)-that highlights the distinct roles of exercise for disease treatment and supportive care from diagnosis until death. We also propose new terminology to clarify the distinct roles of exercise that emerge in the context of the modern cancer treatment landscape.The EPiCC Framework is structured around multiple sequential cancer treatments that highlight six distinct cancer treatment-related time periods for exercise-before treatments, during treatments, between treatments, immediately after successful treatments, during longer term survivorship after successful treatments, and during end of life after unsuccessful treatments. The EPiCC Framework proposes that the specific roles of exercise as a disease treatment and supportive care intervention will vary depending on its positioning within different cancer treatment combinations. As a cancer treatment, exercise may serve as a "priming therapy", primary therapy, neoadjuvant therapy, induction therapy, "bridging therapy", adjuvant therapy, consolidation therapy, maintenance therapy, and/or salvage therapy. As a supportive care intervention, exercise may serve as prehabilitation, intrahabilitation, interhabilitation, rehabilitation, "perihabilitation", health promotion/disease prevention, and/or palliation. To date, exercise has been studied during all of the cancer treatment-related time periods but only in Exercise Oncology Framework 3 relation to some cancer treatments and combinations. Moreover, fewer studies have examined exercise across multiple cancer treatment-related time periods within any cancer treatment combination. Future research is needed to study exercise as a disease treatment and supportive care intervention within and across the distinct cancer treatment-related time periods contained within different cancer treatment combinations. The aim of the EPiCC Framework is to stimulate a more targeted, integrated, and clinically-informed approach to the study of exercise after a cancer diagnosis.

    Keywords: Cancer Treatments, Combination therapy, Exercise, Physical Activity, Multimodality therapy, Prehabilitation, Rehabilitation

    Received: 14 May 2024; Accepted: 05 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Courneya, McNeely, Booth and Friedenreich. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Kerry S. Courneya, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.