Cancer treatments often cause nerve damage that can lead to long-lasting symptoms. Medication has proven ineffective in these cases. A sports scientist at the University of Basel, together with an interdisciplinary team from Germany, has now shown that simple exercises can prevent nerve damage.
Cancer therapies have improved over the years. It is no longer just about sheer survival: quality of life after recovery is gaining more importance. Unfortunately, many cancer medications, from chemotherapy to modern immunotherapies, attack the nerves as well as the tumor cells.
Some therapies, such as oxaliplatin or vinca alkaloids, leave 70 to 90 percent of patients complaining of pain, balance issues, or feelings of numbness, burning or tingling. These symptoms can be very debilitating. They can disappear following cancer treatment, but in around 50 percent they become chronic.
Specialists call it chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy, or CIPN for short. A research team led by sports scientist Dr. Fiona Streckmann from the University of Basel and the German Sport University Cologne has now shown that specific exercise, concomitant to cancer therapy, can prevent nerve damage in many cases.
The researchers have reported their findings in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine . The study involved 158 cancer patients, both male and female, who were receiving treatment either with oxaliplatin or vinca-alkaloids. The researchers divided the patients at random into three groups.
The firs.
