Speaker
Description
Background
Long-term adherence remains one of the main challenges in exercise oncology. To address this, the PRIME Center IOR (Cesena, Italy) operates as a multidisciplinary oncology rehabilitation facility integrating physiotherapy and supervised exercise delivered by oncology-trained professionals. However, longitudinal real-world data describing adherence patterns across different tumor types within such structured clinical pathways remain limited.
Materials and Methods
We analyzed real-world clinical data from 422 patients with solid or hematological malignancies attending the PRIME Center between 2022 and 2025. Patients underwent individualized supervised rehabilitation programs including resistance, aerobic and functional exercise, prescribed twice weekly. Adherence profiles were classified using a bidimensional model based on program duration and training sessions, identifying four groups: high adherence (n=184, 44%), low adherence (n=189, 45%), irregular (n=25, 6%) and intensive (n=24, 6%).
Results
The overall cohort exhibited a median age of 59.3 years (IQR: 52.6–66.1), dominated by females (85%). High-adherence rates varied substantially across tumor types, ranging from 20% to 70%. Ovarian cancer showed the highest proportion of high-adherence patients (70%; 7/10), followed by non-small-cell lung cancer (57%; 4/7), prostate cancer (50%; 8/16) and multiple myeloma (50%; 3/6). Breast cancer (65% of the cohort, n=275) showed an intermediate rate (46%). Lower high-adherence rates were observed in colorectal (30%; 10/33), gastric (26%; 5/19) and pancreatic cancer (20%; 3/15).
Conclusions
Real-world adherence to oncology rehabilitation shows marked heterogeneity across tumor types. Differences in long-term participation may reflect disease burden, treatment complexity and accessibility. Real-world adherence profiling may help optimize individualized exercise oncology pathways and improve continuity of supportive cancer care.
Keywords
Exercise oncology, Real-world data, Adherence profiling, Cancer rehabilitation
| Abstract submitters declaration | yes |
|---|---|
| Conflict of Interest & Ethical Approval | yes |
