[Influence of physical activity on radiotherapy-treated breast cancer patients: A systematic review]

The number of survivors with cancer is growing worldwide, but the adverse effects of the radiotherapy are still frequent, affecting effort capacity, respiratory function and quality of life. The objective is to know how the physical exercise influences the respiratory function and tolerance to effort, in pacients with breast cancer after the radiotherapy treatment.

The searches were carried out in the databases of Pubmed, PEDro, Web Of Science, Cochrane, EMBASE, UptoDate and Tripdatabase. Were included studies with patients with breast cancer treated with radiotherapy and included in an exercise program. The main results were: maximum oxygen consumption, 6 minutes walking test, forced vital capacity, vital capacity, forced expiratory volume in 1 second, total lounge capacity, inspiratory capacity, and the diffusion capacity of the lungs for carbon monoxide.

The results show an increase of the effort capacity with 15% improvements in the maximum oxygen consumption and 6.675% in the 6 minutes walking test, while they are limited for the respiratory function.

The physical exercise is effective for improve the effort capacity in pacients with breast cancer treated with radiotherapy, without changes in the respiratory function. Nevertheless, new studies are necessary to investigate deeply how the physical exercise influences in those pacients, and the ideal design of the programs.