Maximal Exercise Capacity, Extra-pulmonary Characteristics and Physical Activity Levels in Patients With Lung Cancer With Complete Remission .

While lung cancer are rare disease in the early 20th century, its incidence increased in parallel with the increase in smoking habits. It is the most common type of cancer in the world. Despite advances in the efficacy of chemotherapy and radiotherapy regimens, surgical resection is the most effective curative treatment modality to improve survival in non-small cell lung cancer. Pulmonary resection candidates are selected according to not only tumor type and stage, but also functional status, exercise capacity, underlying lung disorders and health-related quality of life assessments. Patients with lung cancer often have lung and heart comorbidities that affect the outcome of the outcome measures and restricts cancer treatment options. In patients with lung cancer, shortness of breath, physical inactivity, weakness in peripheral muscles and exercise intolerance are described. Pulmonary rehabilitation is a multidisciplinary treatment designed to improve exercise capacity, functional status, health-related quality of life and to reduce the attenuation of chronic shortness of breath and fatigue in patients with chronic lung problems.

In literature, the effect of surgery in patients with lung cancer on postoperative respiratory muscle strength is not clear. There is no study investigating the effect of chemotherapy and radiotherapy on respiratory muscle strength. For these reasons, the aim of the study was to evaluate the curative period of non-small cell lung cancer patients with reliability and validity assessment methods. The hypothesis of our study was; when compared with patients with lung cancer and healthy individuals, exercise capacity, respiratory and peripheral muscle strength, physical activity levels, sleep and quality of life of lung cancer patients are reduced; dyspnoea, fatigue, depression, cough and pain levels increase.