Poster 3 - Kenneth Färnqvist, Surgical Care Sciences

Summary

Although Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) protocols do not provide explicit recommendations on the dose and intensity of exercise, multidisciplinary consensus statements recommend that cancer survivors exercise regularly to avoid inactivity. However, the effects of exercise alone on health-related quality of life have not been comprehensively reviewed for patients who have undergone oesophageal or gastric cancer surgery. A systematic review and meta-analysis  was conducted to examine the effects of exercise on the quality of life of patients who underwent surgery for oesophageal or gastric cancer. Three randomised controlled trials involving 284 oesophagectomy patients found no significant improvement in the overall quality of life with exercise compared with standard care. However, the quality of the evidence was very low, which means that definitive conclusions cannot be drawn. The study also highlighted that none of the trials included patients with gastric cancer, indicating a significant research gap. Therefore, there is an urgent need for better research to determine the potential benefits or harms of exercise interventions in patients with oesophageal and gastric cancer.