HBF report part 3: Results

The intervention participants made significant improvements in body composition and continued to improve to the follow up assessment. Participants in the intervention group lost 1.5 kilograms of body mass from baseline to the follow up (p < .001) , while the control group maintained their weight. Additionally, the intervention participants lost almost 4% body fat, improving from being overweight to normal weight, while the control group remained overweight (p < .001).

Intervention participants improved their cardiopulmonary fitness more than the control subjects (p = .003). The intervention participants almost improved a full MET (in this usage, METs can be used to describe the level of cardiovascular fitness, in which one unit is a clinically meaningful change). While there was a slight decrease at the follow up assessment, they were not significantly different from their post intervention fitness levels (p = .99).

Table 6 shows that both groups improved their muscular endurance and strength. While the intervention participants improved more on all three measures, this did not lead to a significant difference between groups. The intervention participants maintained their muscular strength and endurance at the follow up assessment.

Table 6. Muscular Endurance and Strength Changes

	Intervention n = 64			Control n = 46		p value for time
	Baseline	Post Intervention	Follow up	Baseline	Post Intervention
push ups (repetitions)	8.2	12.9	11.7	8.6	11.0	p < .001
plank (seconds)	76.2	99.9	87.9	76.2	87.5	p < .001
leg press (kg)	106.6	127.1	118.7	106.6	117.6	p < .001

          Both groups improved their QOL (p = .002), and the intervention group maintained this improvement. Based upon the values published by the creators of the FACIT system, the participants made a clinically meaningful improvement in QOL. At baseline, participants had a high QOL score on average. These results indicate that participating in exercise continues to benefit cancer survivors even when they already have a good QOL.

The intervention group made a statistically significant improvement in fatigue (p = .004), but this did not lead to a significant difference between the groups (p = .19). However, this change was not clinically meaningful, because on average participants were not feeling fatigued. This findings adds to the evidence that engaging in exercise will help decrease feelings of fatigue rather than making cancer survivors feel more fatigued.