Patients and survivors of breast cancer present impaired physical fitness and various complications including acute and chronic pain, severe fatigue, limited range of motion, and bone loss attributable to anticancer treatments. Therefore, regular exercise during and following cancer treatments has been recommended to enhance physical capabilities and relieve side-effect severities, leading to an improved quality of life. Despite the known general benefits to patients with cancer, the effects of exercise on cancer-related biomarkers and their modulators remain unclear.~PRIMARY OBJECTIVES:~I. To determine whether a 12-week exercise intervention will improve components of health-related physical fitness by measuring cardiorespiratory fitness, muscular exercise capacity and flexibility in breast cancer survivors.~II. To determine whether a 12-week exercise intervention will improve risk parameters of metabolic disease by measuring changes in body composition, waist circumference, blood pressure, and circulating levels of glucose, insulin, lipids components and C-reactive protein in breast cancer survivors.~III. To determine whether a 12-week exercise intervention will conduce to changes of cancer-related biomarker by measuring in serum levels of dickkopf-related protein 1 (DKK1), secreted frizzled-related protein 1 (SFRP1), sclerostin, osteoprotegerin, osteopontin, growth differentiation factor 15 (GDF-15), insulin like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), and IGFBP-3 in breast cancer survivors.~IV. To determine whether a 12-week exercise intervention will result in a improvement in inflammatory cytokines and adipokines by measuring in serum levels of interleukin 1 beta (IL-1β), IL-10, IL-11, tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFα), leptin and adiponectin in breast cancer survivors.~V. To determine whether a 12-week exercise intervention will conduce to changes of myokines by measuring in serum levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), IL-8, IL-15, fatty acid-binding protein 3 (FABP3), leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF), follistatin, fractalkine, fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF-21), osteonectin and irisin in breast cancer survivors.
The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of exercise program on health-related physical fitness and biomarkers among breast cancer survivors.