The purpose of this study is to identify the effects of 12 weeks combined exercise on level of physical activity, physical fitness and quality of life in prostate cancer patients with androgen deprivation therapy.

Twenty nine prostate cancer patients who receive at least more than three months ADT, in Hanyang University Guri Hospital, were selected for the study. The institutional review board of Hanyang University Guri Hospital reviewed and approved this study. Measurement was executed on the subjects before and after the intervention, which included body composition, physical activity level, physical fitness, quality of life, and blood analysis. Supervised exercise program and home-based exercise were executed once a week in exercise group, whereas two muscle stretch sessions were executed in the control group for 12 weeks. 7 subjects in the exercise group were excluded due to insufficient participation for the exercise intervention due to personal concerns such as residence moving, trip, complications and occupational issue while the remaining subjects actively involved in the facility-based exercise program by achieving remarkable 90 percentage attendance rate. 3 subjects in the exercise group who was excluded from the program (with less than 20% attendance rate) were included in the control group for the final analysis. The final analysis was performed with 19 subjects (with 11 subjects in the exercise group and 8 subjects in the control group) while excluding 4 subjects in the control group.

Positive changes in body composition from Inbody 370 were resulted in the exercise group than the control group, and a statistically significant improvement was found in thigh circumference in the exercise group. The results of physical fitness measures from Senior Fitness Test (SFT), Grip dynamometer, and MMT (manual muscle test) were statistically significant in all categories except for flexibility item in the exercise group. Also, improvements were found in the exercise group in daily steps (Control vs. Exercise : from 7511.50±3869.16 to 6307.17±4451.85 vs. from 5863.21±3234.26 to 8110.30±3095.42, p=0.028 ) and moderate-vigorous intensity physical activity from using an accelerometer (Control vs. Exercise : from 36.13±27.49 to 24.10±25.54 vs. from 30.49±27.47 to 116.10±107.78, p=0.037 ). Quality of life was improved in the survey : Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Prostate (FACT-P), Functional Assessment of chronic Illness Therapy-Fatigue (FACIT-F), BDI (Beck Depression Inventory), KFES-I (Korean Fall Efficacy Scale-International), in the exercise group. The reliability of exercise was demonstrated from no change in PSA serum level between pre- and post-exercise intervention.

Despite of low testosterone from ADT  in prostate cancer patients, the combined exercise in this research was resulted to be effective in body composition, physical fitness, level of physical activity, and quality of life.

Taken together, the combined exercise in this research was resulted to be effective in body composition, physical fitness, level of physical activity, and quality of life in prostate cancer patients despite of low testosterone from ADT.

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