TUESDAY, July 2, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Simple exercises performed during rounds of chemotherapy can help people avoid nerve damage normally associated with the cancer-killing drugs, a new study suggests. About twice as many cancer patients on chemo wound up with long-lasting nerve damage if they didn’t exercise, compared with two groups assigned different exercise regimens, researchers reported July 1 in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine . “The potential of physical activity is hugely underestimated,” lead researcher Fiona Streckmann , a research assistant at the University of Basel in Switzerland, said in a news release.
About 70% to 90% of people who get chemo complain of pain, balance issues or feelings of numbness, burning or tingling, researchers said in background notes. These nerve symptoms can disappear after cancer treatment, but about half the time they endure. For the study, researchers recruited 158 cancer patients receiving one of two chemo drugs, oxaliplatin or vinca-alkaloids, and divided them into three groups.
Two groups completed exercise sessions twice a week during their chemotherapy, each lasting 15 to 30 minutes. One group exercised while balancing on an unstable surface, and the other exercised on a vibration plate. The third group received standard care, with no exercise regimen.
Regular exams over the next five years showed that the exercises performed alongside chemo reduced the incidence of nerve damage by 50% to 70%, researchers said. Exe.
