Trial reportMedicine and science in sports and exercise2021
Inflammation Mediates Exercise Effects on Fatigue in Patients with Breast Cancer.
Trial report in Medicine and science in sports and exercise, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 49 papers, 10 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
49 citing papers in PubMed, 10 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 83 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effects of different exercise modalities and doses on arterial stiffness in individuals with overweight and obesity: a systematic review and Bayesian dose-response meta-analysis.BMC sports science, medicine & rehabilitation · 2026Pooled it
- Optimized exercise prescription for alleviating cancer-related fatigue in breast cancer survivors after primary treatment: a systematic review and dose-response network meta-analysis.Frontiers in public health · 2026Pooled it
- Effects of different exercise prescription parameters on metabolic and inflammatory biomarkers in cancer patients: a systematic review, meta-analysis, and meta-regression.Frontiers in immunology · 2025Pooled it
- Effects of exercise on angiogenesis biomarkers in cancer patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in immunology · 2025Pooled it
- Impact of resistance training on fatigue among breast cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2024Pooled it
- Effect of exercise on fatigue and depression in breastcancer women undergoing chemotherapy: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2024Pooled it
- Effects of exercise on immune cells with tumor-specific activity in breast cancer patients and survivors: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2023Pooled it
- Effects of exercise on inflammatory factors and IGF system in breast cancer survivors: a meta-analysis.BMC women's health · 2022Pooled it
- Impact on fatigue of different types of physical exercise during adjuvant chemotherapy and radiotherapy in breast cancer: systematic review and meta-analysis.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2022Pooled it
- Associations of Physical Activity and Exercise with Health-related Outcomes in Patients with Melanoma During and After Treatment: A Systematic Review.Integrative cancer therapiesPooled it
- Impact of resistance training on inflammatory biomarkers and associations with treatment outcomes in colon cancer.Cancer · 2025Trial
- Effects of Managing Cancer and Living Meaningfully on Cancer-Related Fatigue and Cytokine Levels in Gastrointestinal Cancer Patients.Integrative cancer therapiesTrial
- Chronic, self-reported fatigue in adult immunotherapy patients and healthy controls: No association with cardiopulmonary exercise testing parameters.Physiological reports · 2026Article
- Longitudinal Associations Between Inflammatory Biomarkers and Fatigue in Patients With Colorectal Cancer: A Multicenter Study.Cancer medicine · 2026Observational
- Resistance Exercise: A Potential Intervention for Managing Cardiovascular Health in Individuals with a History of Cancer.Sports medicine - open · 2026Article
- A Scoping Review on Exercise Interventions During Adjuvant Chemotherapy or Radiotherapy for Cancer.Cureus · 2026Review
- Is There an Immune Effect of Exercise in Patients with Breast Cancer? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Cancers · 2026Review
- Identifying Core Symptoms in Breast Cancer Patients with Different Chemotherapy Phases Using Network Analysis: A Prospective Multicenter Longitudinal Study.Patient preference and adherence · 2026Article
- Cell biomechanics on muscle atrophy: from intricate mechanisms to therapeutic frontiers.Annals of medicine · 2025Review
- Reliability and applicability of theEuropean journal of applied physiology · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeThe randomized controlled OptiTrain trial showed beneficial effects on fatigue after a 16-wk exercise intervention in patients with breast cancer undergoing adjuvant chemotherapy. We hypothesize that exercise alters systemic inflammation and that this partially mediates the beneficial effects of exercise on fatigue.
methodsTwo hundred and forty women scheduled for chemotherapy were randomized to 16 wk of resistance and high-intensity interval training (RT-HIIT), moderate-intensity aerobic and high-intensity interval training (AT-HIIT), or usual care (UC). In the current mechanistic analyses, we included all participants with >60% attendance and a random selection of controls (RT-HIIT = 30, AT-HIIT = 27, UC = 29). Fatigue (Piper Fatigue Scale) and 92 markers (e.g., interleukin-6 [IL-6] and tumor necrosis factor α [TNF-α]) were assessed at baseline and postintervention. Mediation analyses were conducted to explore whether changes in inflammation markers mediated the effect of exercise on fatigue.
resultsOverall, chemotherapy led to an increase in inflammation. The increases in IL-6 (pleiotropic cytokine) and CD8a (T-cell surface glycoprotein) were however significantly less pronounced after RT-HIIT compared with UC (-0.47, 95% confidence interval = -0.87 to -0.07, and -0.28, 95% confidence interval = -0.57 to 0.004, respectively). Changes in IL-6 and CD8a significantly mediated the exercise effects on both general and physical fatigue by 32.0% and 27.7%, and 31.2% and 26.4%, respectively. No significant between-group differences in inflammatory markers at 16 wk were found between AT-HIIT and UC.
conclusionsThis study is the first showing that supervised RT-HIIT partially counteracted the increase in inflammation during chemotherapy, i.e., IL-6 and soluble CD8a, which resulted in lower fatigue levels postintervention. Exercise, including both resistance and high-intensity aerobic training, might be put forward as an effective treatment to reduce chemotherapy-induced inflammation and subsequent fatigue.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.