Impact of Aerobic Exercise on the Anticancer Immune Response in Patients Receiving Cancer Treatment

Summary

The goal of this clinical trial is to determine to what extent anticancer immune cells mobilized by aerobic exercise exhibit migratory and functional capacity towards cancer cells in patients undergoing treatment for breast or colorectal cancer. The main questions it aims to answer are:

• Do anticancer immune cells mobilized by aerobic exercise will display migratory and functional capacity in patients undergoing treatment for curable breast or colorectal cancer?

Hypothesis: exercise will promote cell migration and these cells will display anti-cancer functional characteristics, suggesting a possible adjuvant and immunotherapeutic use of exercise.

• Do the magnitude of this anti-cancer immune response to exercise depend on the intensity of exercise?

Hypothesis: the achievement of a higher intensity of effort will enable greater mobilization of the cytotoxic lymphocytes of interest, but also the expression of markers predicting a more interesting adjuvant potential to immunotherapy.

Researchers will compare the effect of two exercise sessions, one moderate-intensity continuous exercise session (MOD) and one high-intensity interval exercise (HIIE) on the migration and anticancer potentials of mobilized immune cells.

Individuals aged between 40 and 70 with curable colon or breast cancer will be recruited to carry out a cross-over study with two experimental conditions. After a preliminary assessment visit, they will take part in:

* Two familiarization visits to validate the exercise prescription
* Two experimental visits (HIIE and MOD). During these conditions, blood samples will be taken before, after and 1 hour after the end of exercise to collect immune cells in the blood.

At the end of the visits, participants will leave with an accelerometer to wear for three days depending on conditions, and a notebook containing a questionnaire to assess fatigue levels over the same three days.

Conditions

• Colorectal Cancer
• Breast Cancer
• Non Metastatic Cancer

Interventions

OTHER

Exercise

Moderate-Intensity Continuous Exercise (MOD): The MOD condition will consist of a 37-minute continuous aerobic exercise session on ergocycle. This includes a warm-up and cool-down period at low intensity, and a 32-minute period at moderate intensity at a power corresponding to 50% of the last stop completed in the modified YMCA test completed in the preliminary visit. High-Intensity Interval Exercise (HIIE): The HIIE condition will consist of a 35-minute high-intensity aerobic exercise session on ergocycle. This includes a warm-up at low intensity, followed by 10 blocks of 1 minute at high intensity (110% of power highest poweroutput reached during the submaximal test) and 2 minutes of active rest (25% of highest power output).

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Université de Sherbrooke

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Eléonor Riesco, PhD · University of Sherbrooke, Faculty of Physical Activity Sciences, Department of Kinanthropology

• Lee-Hwa Tai, PhD · University of Sherbrooke, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Department of Immunology and Cellular Biology

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

SUPPORTIVE_CARE

Masking

NONE

Model

CROSSOVER

Eligibility

Min Age

40 Years

Max Age

70 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2025-04-01

Primary Completion

2026-12-30

Completion

2027-09-30

Countries

• Canada

Study Locations