Description

Breast cancer patients under hormonal therapy may experience significant adverse events related to this treatment. Premenopausal women may encounter the classic symptoms of menopausal syndrome: hair thinning or loss; hot flashes, sweating, fatigue, insomnia, joint pain, vaginal dryness, decreased libido, anxious-depressive disorders, cognitive dysfunction; dry eyes; weight gain. Postmenopausal women may instead experience joint stiffness and joint pain, depressive and anxious symptoms, fatigue and irritability.

Since most of these adverse events do not resolve spontaneously a few weeks/months after starting treatment, they often negatively impact patient's quality of life.

As a result of treatment-related adverse events, failure to adhere to adjuvant therapies or discontinuation of treatment has been reported to be high and this may negatively impact patient's prognosis and survival.

Patients with breast cancer frequently experience weight gain during and after adjuvant hormonal treatment. Indeed, menopause, musculoskeletal pain and the consequent physical activity reduction, work together to reduce the basal energy metabolism. On the other side, the psychological distress and the eventual use of food for emotional reward, do promote weight gain. Notably, breast cancer patients who are overweight or obese show an increased risk of overall mortality, cancer-specific mortality, breast cancer relapse or second primary contralateral breast cancer. The explanation lies in the fact that the increase in fat mass is directly correlated to an increased production of estrogens, insulin, leptin and proinflammatory cytokines which, all together, exhibit a mitogenic activity on mammary cells. Proinflammatory cytokines and insulin deregulation on their turn, favor with time the onset of other chronic diseases such as diabetes, dyslipidemia, metabolic syndrome in general, thus increasing the risk of overall mortality. Conversely, weight loss can improve hormonal status, quality of life and physical functioning and contribute to reduce cancer recurrence risk, cancer-related and chronic-condition-related mortality. Therefore, it is important to promote weight control and the adoption of healthy lifestyle habits in breast cancer survivors.

Manipulation procedures, such as manual treatment with osteopathic techniques, involve the mechanical displacement of fluids and the removal of toxic substances with neurovascular and neuromuscular effects, thus producing positive alterations at the metabolic, biochemical and circulatory level. Several studies conducted on patients with breast cancer have supported the positive effect of manual therapy (acupuncture, shiatsu treatments, massages) on the control of various problems such as osteoarticular pain, peripheral neuropathies, anxious-depressive disorders, asthenia and sleep disorders, also improving immune and neuroendocrine responses.

Nevertheless, there are no studies on the effect of manual treatment with osteopathic techniques on the control of symptoms related to the side effects induced by anti-tumor therapies.

The aim of this study is to evaluate the effects of dietary intervention and manual treatment with osteopathic techniques in women diagnosed with breast cancer under antiestrogenic hormonal treatment through the assessment of:

• modifications of quality of life (QoL)
• frequency and severity of symptoms related to antiestrogenic hormonal treatment
• body weight
• body composition
• food habits
• metabolic and inflammatory state
• physical performance
• patient's satisfaction to multidisciplinary treatment.

This study focuses on patient's centricity evaluating the effects that long lasting adjuvant therapies have on breast cancer survivors. Improving personalized patient's treatment through collaborative interactions between clinicians, osteopaths and nutrition specialists might result in implementation strategies to determine novel evidence-based treatments for ameliorating patient's adherence to oncological therapies, impacting prognosis and survival.