A Comparison of Physical Activity of Posttreatment Breast Cancer Survivors and Noncancer Controls

Abstract

The authors obtained data from 335 breast cancer survivors and 6,880 non-cancer controls. They proposed (1) to determine whether, after treatment, the survivors were meeting the Center for Disease Control and Prevention/American College of Sports Medicine recommendations for physical activity and were similar to the controls in physical activity and (2) to compare the modes of activity of the 2 groups in frequency, min/session, and sessions/wk. Adjusted logistic regression analyses revealed that the breast cancer survivors engaged in as much moderate, vigorous, and combined physical activity as the non-cancer controls did. However, chi-square analyses showed that survivors engaged in more yard work than the controls did, whereas independent-sample t tests showed that the frequency and the total min/wk of stretching were significantly higher in breast cancer survivors compared with noncancer controls. Findings from the study suggest that breast cancer survivors engage in as much physical activity as controls do, but that the groups differ in specific activities.

Key Words:

• breast cancer survivors
• noncancer controls
• physical activity
• treatment

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Frank Baker

Dr Blanchard is an assistant professor with the Faculty of Health Sciences in the School of Human Kinetics, the University of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Mr Nehl, Dr Stein, and Dr Baker are with the Behavioral Research Center, American Cancer Society, Atlanta, Georgia, where Dr Cokkinides is with Risk Factor Surveillance in Epidemiology. Dr Courneya is with the Faculty of Physical Education, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada.