WISER After Ovarian Cancer – Exercise Pilot Study

One in four deaths in the United States is due to cancer, and one in three women will develop cancer in her lifetime. Despite improvements in survival among other forms of cancer, ovarian cancer prognosis remains poor. Eighty percent of women with ovarian cancer will present with advanced disease (stage 3 or 4) where 5-year survival ranges from 18-34%.2 Among patients with stage III and IV epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC), recurrence rates are high.4 Therefore, interventions focused on preventing recurrence or slowing progression of EOC is a critical problem in the field. The investigators have submitted an R21 to NCI for a dose response exercise intervention trial to examine the dose response effects of aerobic exercise on biomarkers relevant to ovarian cancer progression and recurrence. The reviewers would like assurance that the investigators can recruit ovarian cancer patients into an exercise study and that these women will do the exercise protocol we plan to prescribe in our high dose of exercise.