Background: The positive impact that physical activity has on patients with cancer has been shown in several studies over recent years. However, supervised physical activity programs have several limitations, including costs and availability. Therefore, our study proposes a novel approach for the implementation of a patient-executed, activity tracker-guided exercise program to bridge this gap.
Objective: Our trial aims to investigate the impact that an activity tracker-guided, patient-executed exercise program for patients undergoing radiotherapy has on cancer-related fatigue, health-related quality of life, and preoperative health status.
Methods: Patients receiving postoperative radiotherapy for breast cancer (OnkoFit I trial) or neoadjuvant, definitive, or postoperative treatment for other types of solid tumors (OnkoFit II trial) will be randomized (1:1:1) into 3-arm studies. Target accrual is 201 patients in each trial (50 patients per year). After providing informed consent, patients will be randomized into a standard care arm (arm A) or 1 of 2 interventional arms (arms B and C). Patients in arms B and C will wear an activity tracker and record their daily step count in a diary. Patients in arm C will receive personalized weekly targets for their physical activity. No further instructions will be given to patients in arm B. The target daily step goals for patients in arm C will be adjusted weekly and will be increased by 10% of the average daily step count of the past week until they reach a maximum of 6000 steps per day. Patients in arm A will not be provided with an activity tracker. The primary end point of the OnkoFit I trial is cancer-related fatigue at 3 months after the completion of radiotherapy. This will be measured by the Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy-Fatigue questionnaire. For the OnkoFit II trial, the primary end point is the overall quality of life, which will be assessed with the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-General sum score at 6 months after treatment to allow for recovery after possible surgery. In parallel, blood samples from before, during, and after treatment will be collected in order to assess inflammatory markers.
Results: Recruitment for both trials started on August 1, 2020, and to date, 49 and 12 patients have been included in the OnkoFit I and OnkoFit II trials, respectively. Both trials were approved by the institutional review board prior to their initiation.
Conclusions: The OnkoFit trials test an innovative, personalized approach for the implementation of an activity tracker-guided training program for patients with cancer during radiotherapy. The program requires only a limited amount of resources.
Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04506476; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04506476. ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04517019; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04517019.
International registered report identifier (irrid): DERR1-10.2196/28524.
Keywords: activity tracker; cancer; digital health; exercise program; fatigue; physical activity; quality of life; radiotherapy.
©Franziska Hauth, Barbara Gehler, Andreas Michael Nieß, Katharina Fischer, Andreas Toepell, Vanessa Heinrich, Inka Roesel, Andreas Peter, Mirjam Renovanz, Andreas Hartkopf, Andreas Stengel, Daniel Zips, Cihan Gani. Originally published in JMIR Research Protocols (https://www.researchprotocols.org), 22.09.2021.