PREOPERATIVE PHYSICAL ACTIVITY LEVELS AND POSTOPERATIVE BURDEN IN CANCER PATIENTS: A PROSPECTIVE OBSERVATIONAL STUDY

• Autor(a) principal: Cardoso, Rodrigo
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Outros Autores: Guedes, Mariana, Pauli, Nicolle, Ehrenbrink, Gabriela, Poças, Keily, Castro, Carolina, Santos, Carla Salomé, Schmidt, Cristine, Moreira-Gonçalves, Daniel
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://doi.org/10.34635/rpc.932

Introduction: There is a growing interest to understand the impact of preoperative physical activity (PA) levels in postoperative morbidity and mortality. The aim of this study is to assess the levels of PA in patients with head/neck or gastric cancer through accelerometry and compare postoperative burden among those “complying” or “not complying” with PA recommendations. Methods: We conducted an observational, longitudinal and prospective study in newly diagnosed patients with gastric or head/ neck cancer, recruited at IPO-Porto. The levels of PA were evaluated through accelerometry. Data about postoperative burden (complications, length of hospital stay and mortality) were collected from clinical records. Results: A total of 81 patients were recruited, mostly men (76.5%), with an average age 61.8±11.55 years, 69.08±15.55 kg of weight and a BMI of 25.82±5.29 kg/m2. Fifty-four patients had a diagnosis of gastric cancer (66.7%) and 27 had head/neck cancer (33.3%). Patients spent 54% of their wearing time in sedentary behavior, 42% in light PA, and 4% in moderate to vigorous PA. Their median weekly MVPA was 132 (3-1860) min, and only 46.9% of patients accomplished the minimum amount of MVPA/week recommendations. No differences were noted among gastric and head/neck cancer patients. Regarding postoperative burden, 23.4% of patients had minor complications and 12.5% had major complications. The length of hospital stay was 13.86 ± 15.58 days and 9.9% deaths occurred after surgery. Postoperative mortality was superior among those patients “not complying” with international recommendations of PA (7 vs. 1 death). Conclusion: Our data suggests that high preoperative PA levels may decrease the risk of postoperative mortality. Assessing preoperative levels of PA could bring value to identify those patients at greater risk of surgical burden and guide them to intervention designed to mitigate that risk by increasing their physical activity, such as prehabilitation.