Treatment Adherence to a Personalized Home Exercise Program in Patients With Bone Cancer Undergoing Lower Extremity Resection and Reconstruction

In cancer patients undergoing adjuvant therapies, rehabilitation plays an important role in reducing the side effects of chemotherapy treatment by promoting cardiorespiratory function, reducing fatigue and improving quality of life. Physiotherapy treatment, generally, includes physical training programs administered in many ways, not yet well standardized. With the aim of seeking an empowerment of the patient and his active participation, more and more exercise programs are used that the patient is able to manage independently. Adherence to and compliance with such exercise programs is extremely variable in literature and can range from 52% to 89%. A high level of adhesion is a well-known challenge and a fundamental prerequisite for achieving the benefits of physical activity. Home exercise programs to be performed in complete autonomy have been proposed in patients with different types of cancer, while for patients with bone tumor, to date there are no experiences. In this group of patients the role of physiotherapy is significant not only to counteract the adverse effects of chemotherapy treatment but also to promote the recovery of patients following the important resection and reconstruction interventions. In this type of patient, a high adherence to the physiotherapy treatment started already during the periods of hospitalization for the administration of antiblastic treatment.

Data will be collected from all patients treated consecutively over two years according to the defined inclusion criteria. Given the rarity of oncologic pathology of the musculoskeletal system and the limited number of patients of 27 found to meet the inclusion criteria in the year 2021, it is assumed that data will be collected from a sample of 50 patients.

The variables collected will be: age, sex, BMI, smoking, physical activity level, diagnosis, metastasis at diagnosis, type of surgery, chemotherapy treatment.

Data will be described by mean and standard deviation or median and interquartile range values according to the nature of the data and frequency and percentage for dichotomous variables

The objective of this study is to describe adherence to a personalised home exercise program in patients undergoing resection and reconstruction of lower limb for bone tumor and neoadjuvant chemotherapy treatment in the first six months after surgery intervention and investigate possible prognostic factors.