The EON monthly newsletter includes upcoming webinars, updates on exercise oncology and oncology nutrition related events, publications, and resources. This information is also available on the EON Network webpage. Past newsletters are archived here. General EON Network resources are listed here.

Email eonnetwork@gwu.edu to make a topic suggestion.

All previous webinar session recordings are available on the EON Network Webinars webpage. 

Kenkhuis MF, Stelten S, Hartman YA, Brouwer CG, Ten Tusscher MR, van Lonkhuijzen LR, Kenter GG, van Driel WJ, Winkels RM, Bekkers RL, Ottevanger NP, Hoedjes M, Buffart LM. Effects of a combined exercise and dietary intervention on body composition, physical functioning and fatigue in patients with ovarian cancer: results of the PADOVA trial. Br J Cancer. 2024 May 8. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 38720046. Read here.

Marlou-Floor Kenkhuis, PhD and colleagues found no significant effect of the diet and exercise intervention between the intervention and control groups. However, intervention participants reported a profound sense of empowerment, including feelings of resilience and adaptability in navigating the challenges of cancer treatment, which differed from the reports from the control group.

“Despite meticulous analysis and positive experiences by patients, we found no significant effect between the intervention and control groups. This revelation led us to introspect: were we measuring the right outcome? Did our quantitative metric capture the nuanced experiences reported in qualitative interviews? While quantitative analyses failed to demonstrate definitive benefits, qualitative insights unveiled a profound sense of empowerment among the intervention group. Their narratives echoed feelings of resilience and adaptability to navigate the challenges of cancer treatment, contrasting with the sentiments of the control group…As our findings enter the public domain, we remain steadfast in our commitment to exploring the role of physical exercise as a supportive element in cancer care.”

Mahé M, Seegers V, Vansteene D. Correlation between changes in nutritional status and tumor response in patients receiving immunotherapy for lung cancer (NUTIMMUNO study). Support Care Cancer. 2024 Apr 27;32(5):312. PMID: 38676729. Read here.

Investigators retrospectively reviewed the nutrition status of patients at baseline (beginning of immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) treatment) and 3 months after treatment initiation. Better overall survival was found among patients who were considered well nourished at both early timepoints. Maintenance of good nutritional status during the early months of ICI treatment leads to better overall survival than beginning malnourished and improving, remaining malnourished, or deteriorating in nutritional status through those months.

National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship (NCCS):
Free CME Course and Webinar - Making Integrative Oncology Regular & Routine

In this Survivorship Champions webinar by The National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship (NCCS), Terri Crudup and Dr. Alyssa McManamon presented a study conducted by the Healing Works Foundation. The presentation is grounded in insights from two years’ worth of data and provides actions that can be implemented to make integrative whole person cancer care the norm in cancer treatment and survivorship. 

New Organization: International Society of Exercise Oncology

Kathryn Schmitz, PhD led a planning meeting with exercise oncology scientists and practitioners at the American College and Sports Medicine (ACSM) annual meeting. She recaps, "A review of the 2024 ASCO meeting revealed that 19 of the 5887 abstracts were on the topic of exercise or physical activity. The lack of exercise oncology programming at scientific meetings stands at odds with the prevalence of exercise oncology in the peer reviewed literature. As of June 4, 2024, there were 30,109 peer reviewed PubMed citations on exercise and cancer. Exercise oncology researchers and clinicians wonder: Is it time to form the International Society of Exercise Oncology (ISEO)?

"The agenda for a planning meeting for ISEO, held May 28th, 2024 in Boston, included a welcome session, brief presentations from 11 disciplines, and a session on international perspectives from six different continents. 

"Ninety-one percent of the nearly 200 attendees indicated that current meetings do not address the needs of the exercise oncology community. There was strong enthusiasm for the formation of the ISEO. The audience was split 50/50 on the question of whether to include nutrition, leaving open the option for further discussion on this topic."

Those interested in being on a mailing list to hear more about the development of the ISEO should email Kathryn Schmitz at schmitzk@upmc.edu.

Opportunities at the National Cancer Institute

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) supports fellowships, research career development awards, and training/education research in all areas of cancer research, including cancer prevention, control, behavioral sciences, population sciences, and translational research, at universities and institutions across the country. 

Frank Perna, EdD, PhD and Tanya Agurs-Collins, PhD, RD describes how the NCI-funded Exercise and Nutrition Interventions to Improve Cancer Treatment-related Outcomes (ENICTO) Consortium aims to explore the “efficacy of specific exercise and/or medical nutrition interventions to improve the completion of cancer therapy, to determine intervention effects on related factors (e.g., chemotoxicities, adverse events, and health care utilization), and to generate information that may inform clinical care of cancer survivors...The Implementation Science and Cost Working Group (ISCWG) leverages the ENICTO structure and includes goals around analytic approaches for how interventions are implemented within studies with an eye toward identifying research tasks from those related to direct clinical care. In addition, the working group is considering cost analyses and how to assess participant satisfaction and other factors that may relate to future translational research.” Read here.

Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer (MASCC) Annual Meeting

American Society for Nutrition (ASN) Conference

Visit the EON Network webpage for more information. You can also follow the EON network on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, Instagram, and Threads! Specific questions regarding the EON Network should be directed to eonnetwork@gwu.edu. Feel free to share the EON Network with colleagues who are interested in exercise oncology and/or oncology nutrition!