High intensity interval training safety and efficacy in patients with advanced NSCLC receiving systemic treatment: Results of a prospective trial

Background: Patients with advanced NSCLC experience fatigue and physical deconditioning altering their quality of life. Safety and feasibility of high intensity exercise in advanced NSCLC has not been explored yet. Methods: We report the results of a single-center, prospective two-arm study. Patients with advanced NSCLC actively receiving systemic therapy or having completed treatment less than 2 months prior to enrollment were included. Patients were allocated to either an intervention arm consisting of kinesiologist supervised high intensity interval training (HIIT) at 2 sessions per week for a total of 12 weeks;or a control arm of home exercise guided by an informative pamphlet. All patients were evaluated at baseline, 6 and 12 weeks by a kinesiologist. Quality of life (QoL) exercise surveys and measurement of strength were measured. Results: Sixty patients were enrolled between January 2018 and March 2020. The study was interrupted due to COVID-19. Thirty-two patients were included in the exercise program and 28 patients in the control group. Both groups were balanced in respect to baseline characteristics. A total of 32 (53%) patients went off protocol, 13 (18%) patients stopped due to symptomatic disease progression which included 2 (3%) deaths, 2 (3%) stopped due to COVID-19 preoccupations and the remaining patients withdrew for other reasons. 42 (70%) patients were evaluated at 6- weeks and 28 (47%) completed the 12-week follow-up, with equal distribution in each group. There were no significant difference at 12 weeks in the physical assessment nor the overall QoL scores between both groups: FACT-L on 135 points (+4.1 vs +1.7, p = 0.342) and FACIT on 52 points (+3 vs -0.2, p = 0.832). Patients in the exercise group demonstrated a significant improvement at 12 weeks in the Lung Cancer Symptoms domain on 28 points (22.3 vs 19.8, p = 0.015) as well as the Physical Wellbeing domain on 28 points (23.6 vs 20.6, p = 0.056) compared to the control group, respectively. No significant exercise related complications were reported. After the study, 9 of the 14 patients (64%) who completed the HIIT program continued to exercise virtually with a kinesiologist in contrast to none in the control group. Conclusions: This study demonstrated the safety and potential benefit of a HIIT program on lung-specific and physical wellbeing in patients with advanced NSCLC on active treatment. This study provides further support on the role of supervised physical exercise in patients living with cancer.