Physical Activity as the Best Supportive Care in Cancer: The Clinician’s and the Researcher’s Perspectives

SIMPLE SUMMARY: This literature review on adapted physical exercise has been written in order to raise awareness of medical staff to this central theme in the management of cancer patients, and very often left in the background after the specific treatment of cancer. We have summarized the benefits of exercise from a physiological, pathophysiological, and cellular point of view as well as through interactions between the person and their environment. In the second part, we explore the perspectives, based on a literature review. ABSTRACT: Multidisciplinary supportive care, integrating the dimensions of exercise alongside oncological treatments, is now regarded as a new paradigm to improve patient survival and quality of life. Its impact is important on the factors that control tumor development, such as the immune system, inflammation, tissue perfusion, hypoxia, insulin resistance, metabolism, glucocorticoid levels, and cachexia. An increasing amount of research has been published in the last years on the effects of physical activity within the framework of oncology, marking the appearance of a new medical field, commonly known as “exercise oncology”. This emerging research field is trying to determine the biological mechanisms by which, aerobic exercise affects the incidence of cancer, the progression and/or the appearance of metastases. We propose an overview of the current state of the art physical exercise interventions in the management of cancer patients, including a pragmatic perspective with tips for routine practice. We then develop the emerging mechanistic views about physical exercise and their potential clinical applications. Moving toward a more personalized, integrated, patient-centered, and multidisciplinary management, by trying to understand the different interactions between the cancer and the host, as well as the impact of the disease and the treatments on the different organs, this seems to be the most promising method to improve the care of cancer patients.