Aims
A radical prostatectomy (RP) is the most common treatment for localized prostate cancer, which has a 15-year survival rate approaching 90 percent. Exercise can improve quality of life and fatigue in cancer survivors. It has been shown that perioperative exercise can predict post-surgery outcomes. An objective of this review was to determine if perioperative exercise therapy (aerobic, mind-body, pelvic floor, resistance, or combination thereof) improved prostate cancer-specific quality of life, as well as the adverse effects of prostate cancer surgery on patients with prostate cancer.
Methods
Between March 1980 and December 2022, a systematic search of exercise intervention trials with prostate cancer patients was conducted in English. Databases included PubMed, CINHAL, Web of Sciences, SPORTS Discus, and Cochrane Library. Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms were used. The intervention group consisted of randomized controlled trials with aerobic, resistance, pelvic floor, mind-body, and mixed exercises (combined aerobic and resistance) as interventions, and the control group consisted of no interventions or standard care.
Results
Thirty-one of the 1162 retrieved studies were included in the systematic review, and 15 articles were included in the meta-analysis. A total of 1971 prostate cancer patients (1018 intervention and 953 control) were included in the meta-analysis with radical prostatectomy. Pooled evidence from randomised controlled trials (n=1971 participants) identifies that perioperative exercise therapy (aerobic, resistance, pelvic floor, mind-body exercise, or mixed exercise (combined aerobic and resistance) has a positive impact on patient quality of life and adverse events in PCa patients undergoing surgery which is predominant in perceptions of symptom related QoL (SMD: 0.56, 95% CI’s [0.22-0.89]) more so than health-related quality of life (HRQoL) (SMD: 0.02, 95% CI’s [-0.16-0.20]; 3)
Conclusions:
Combined evidence from RCTs shows improvement in QOL. These results support the hypothesis that exercise interventions improve prostate cancer-specific quality of life.