NIH grant aims to reduce neuromuscular effects of chemotherapy in breast cancer survivors

TAMPA, Fla (Oct 2, 2019) – A University of South Florida (USF) College of Nursing researcher has been awarded a $2.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Cancer Institute to study whether a home-based exercise regimen to help improve gait and balance and strengthen muscles can lessen adverse neuromuscular effects many breast cancer survivors face after chemotherapy.

In a five-year study titled “Home-Based Physical Activity Intervention for Taxane-Induced CIPN,” principal investigator Constance Visovsky, PhD, RN, ACNP, FAAN, will examine whether the 16-week exercise program can decrease the severity of nerve and muscle symptoms from chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN).

The research study is significant because it is the first to test the home delivery of an exercise intervention aimed at cancer patients who continue to suffer from CIPN – an irreversible condition characterized by pain, numbness, tingling in the extremities, and impaired gait and balance related to receiving the common class of cancer drugs called taxanes.

“If successful, it will provide the only evidence-based intervention for patients suffering from persistent neuropathy from chemotherapy,” said Visovsky, an associate professor of nursing at USF Health. “And it can be delivered in the home, so it’s easily translated to clinical practice.”

Visovsky and her interdisciplinary team will recruit 312 women with breast cancer who have completed their taxane chemotherapy treatments for at least a year, but who still report CIPN.

Half of the women will undergo the home-based resistance strength training plus a gait and balance exercise program while keeping an exercise journal. The remaining 156 will receive an attention control program of educational materials on cancer survivorship. The study will assess each participant’s lower extremity muscle strength, gait and balance, nerve conduction, neuropathy symptoms and quality of life every four weeks for 16 weeks.

Specifically, participants will undergo a sophisticated gait and motion analysis at the USF Health School of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Sciences. Researchers in the USF Health Department of Neurology will perform nerve conduction studies to measure peripheral sensory and motor functions. Researchers will also collect different variables that may confound the results, such as a patients’s age, body mass index, the number of chemotherapy cycles received, and any medications taken to treat neuropathic pain, Visovsky said.

Visovsky has conducted research on the neuromuscular effects of cancer chemotherapy for over 20 years, and is hopeful this intervention could help lessen the painful symptoms, reduce the risk of fall and injury, and ultimately improve a breast cancer survivor’s quality of life.

She will work with a team of USF Health researchers who specialize in biostatistics, neurology, physical therapy and rehabilitation sciences.

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The study’s co-investigators include College of Nursing professor Ming Ji, PhD; USF Health Morsani College of Medicine neurology professor Tuan Vu, MD; associate professor Douglas Haladay, DPT; and assistant professor Patricia Teran Wodzinski, PT. Ellen Eckelman, a physical therapist at Tampa General Hospital, will be a study consultant.

USF Health’s mission is to envision and implement the future of health. It is the partnership of the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine, the College of Nursing, the College of Public Health, the College of Pharmacy, the School of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Sciences, the Biomedical Sciences Graduate and Postdoctoral Programs, and the USF Physicians Group. The University of South Florida, established in 1956 and located in Tampa, is a high-impact, global research university dedicated to student success. USF is ranked in the Top 30 nationally for research expenditures among public universities, according to the National Science Foundation. For more information, visit http://www.health.usf.edu.