Cancer survivors get more easily fatigued: Study
New York March 18 (IANS) Researchers have found that adults who have undergone successful cancer treatment may become fatigued more quickly than their peers who do not have a history of cancer.
"The main goal of cancer treatment has been survival but studies like this suggest that we need also to examine the longer-term effects on health and quality of life " said Jennifer Schrack Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland US.
For the study published in the journal Cancer researchers examined data from a long-running study of normal ageing which included periodic treadmill tests of fatigability as well as 400-metre walks to test endurance.
They found that on average participants with a history of cancer treatment reported more fatigue in the treadmill tests and were slower to complete the endurance walks compared to participants without a cancer history.
After adjusting for gender- and health-related differences between 334 participants who had a history of cancer and 1 331 who did not the researchers also found that a cancer history was associated with a 1.6 times greater risk of high perceived fatigability.
The mean ages were 74 years for the 334 people in the cancer history group and 69 years for the 1 331 in the no-cancer history group.
By comparison the team found that being older than 65 years brought a 5.7 times greater risk of high perceived fatigability -- implying that the effect of a cancer history was more than a third as large as the effect of ageing past 65.
Similarly a cancer history was associated with 400-metre walk times averaging 14 seconds slower than those for participants with no cancer history.
The over-65 participants with a cancer history also deteriorated more steeply in their endurance-walk times from one checkup to the next compared to those without a cancer history.
"These findings support the idea that a history of cancer is associated with higher fatigability and that this effect worsens with advancing age " Schrack noted.
--IANS
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