Background: to optimize prehabilitation for patients with oesophageal cancer, insight is required into the response to prehabilitation, and factors affecting this response. This study investigated (1) the response to prehabilitation in patients with oesophageal cancer following neoadjuvant treatment, (2) the association between baseline physical fitness and preoperative changes in fitness, (3) differences in physical fitness, nutritional status, and fatigue between responders and non-responders to rehabilitation.
Methods: this multicenter cohort study included patients with oesophageal cancer, following a 6–10 week personalized prehabilitation program as part of standard care. Prehabilitation, consisting of supervised exercise and nutritional counseling, started after neoadjuvant treatment. Preoperative physical fitness and nutritional status were
monitored before and after neoadjuvant treatment, and after prehabilitation. Changes over time were analyzed using linear mixed models. Impact of baseline fitness on preoperative changes in exercise capacity was investigated using a linear mixed regression model. Differences between responders to prehabilitation (>0 Watt improvement during exercise training) and non-responders were analyzed using Independent T-Tests and multivariable logistic regression.
