Exercise Therapy for Incurable, Advanced Cancers Review and Discourse on Bone Metastases

Thanks to the development of new chemotherapy protocols and improved targeted treatment strategies, the survival of patients with incurable, advanced cancers has been significantly extended. However, the quality of life of these patients is significantly limited by the disease-related symptoms and the additional therapy-related side effects. Literature reviews show that patients with incurable, advanced cancers can also benefit from adapted exercise therapy. A literature search using electronic databases (PubMed, MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane Library) was carried out and an overview of the randomized, controlled trials (RCTs) for exercise therapy with regard to incurable, advanced cancers was given. The studies show that targeted exercise therapy is safe and feasible in patients with incurable, advanced cancers and can achieve positive effects on quality of life, on disease- and therapy-related symptoms such as fatigue, dyspnea as well as physical functional status. The article also contains a discourse with a practical relevance on the subject of bone metastases.