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STUDY PROTOCOL article

Front. Sports Act. Living
Sec. Physical Activity in the Prevention and Management of Disease
Volume 6 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fspor.2024.1495398
This article is part of the Research Topic Cardiopulmonary Exercise Testing in Chronic Diseases View all 3 articles

Prehabilitation During Neoadjuvant Therapy in Patients with Cancer of the Upper Gastrointestinal Tract and Rectum -the Study Protocol

Provisionally accepted
Irina Chmelova Irina Chmelova 1Dalibor Pastucha Dalibor Pastucha 1,2*Tomas Hudecek Tomas Hudecek 2Zdeněk Guřan Zdeněk Guřan 1,2Sona Ciecotkova Sona Ciecotkova 2Lubomír Martínek Lubomír Martínek 3Jana Zubikova Jana Zubikova 4Alena Matlova Alena Matlova 5Jakub Dolezel Jakub Dolezel 6Dana Salounova Dana Salounova 7Jakub Chmelo Jakub Chmelo 8
  • 1 Department of Rehabilitation and Sports Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Osrava, Ostrava, Czechia
  • 2 Department of Rehabilitation and Sports Medicine, University Hospital Ostrava, Ostrava, Czechia
  • 3 Department of Surgery, University Hospital Ostrava, Ostrava, Czechia
  • 4 Department of Oncology, University Hospital Ostrava and Faculty of Medicine, University of Ostrava, Ostrava, Czechia
  • 5 Department of Anesthesiology, Resuscitation and Intensive Care Medicine, University Hospital Ostrava, Ostrava, Czechia
  • 6 Centre for Telemedicine Services, University Hospital Ostrava, Ostrava, Czechia
  • 7 Department of the Deputy Director for Science and Research, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ostrava, Ostrava, Czechia
  • 8 Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom

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

    The concept of prehabilitation, defined as interventions aimed at enhancing a patient's functional capacity prior to an impending physiological stressor, may contribute to reduced postoperative morbidity and mortality. The study's goal is to verify or refute the feasibility of a prehabilitation programme for two diagnostic patient groups during neoadjuvant chemo(radio)therapy, which is prescribed before the scheduled surgical procedure. This is a single group study design, with all patients enrolled receiving the intervention.Methods: This is an interventional feasibility study of a prehabilitation programme in the form of physical training conducted at home. The training consists of progressively dosed walking and strength exercises for selected muscle groups. Data will be monitored telemetrically and also through telephone contact with participants. Primary outcomes include: the percentage of patients interested in participating in the study out of all patients indicated for neoadjuvant therapy at University Hospital Ostrava during the observed period, the percentage of patients who complete the prehabilitation programme until the date of surgery and individual patient compliance. Secondary outcomes include physical fitness parameters obtained from cardiopulmonary exercise testing, grip strength measured by a dynamometer, changes in body composition, EORTC QLQ-C30 quality of life questionnaire, and a questionnaire on the subjective perception of the exercise programme. Both primary and secondary outcomes will be compared between study arms (two diagnostic groups). The study is registered at ClinicalTrials.gov ID: NCT05646043.The results of this study can serve as a foundation for larger, multicentre, controlled studies in the future.

    Keywords: Prehabilitation, Neoadjuant chemotherapy, physical activity, Surgical oncolgoy, physical training

    Received: 12 Sep 2024; Accepted: 31 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Chmelova, Pastucha, Hudecek, Guřan, Ciecotkova, Martínek, Zubikova, Matlova, Dolezel, Salounova and Chmelo. 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: Dalibor Pastucha, Department of Rehabilitation and Sports Medicine, University Hospital Ostrava, Ostrava, Czechia

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