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The value in the Smilow Cancer Hospital Yale Cancer Center relationship

A listing of recent publications by Yale Cancer Center researchers and clinicians in the first quarter of 2024

Dr. Melinda Irwin, the Deputy Director at the Yale Cancer Center, has explained that, while the stress itself may not cause the cancer, people may take up smoking, become less active, and drink more alcohol to try and cope with it, all of which may have disastrous consequences.

A study of a diet and exercise intervention for women with breast cancer found no difference in chemotherapy completion rates but a significant improvement in pathologic complete response (pCR) rates compared with standard care.

Do exercise and a healthy diet improve outcomes for cancer patients? A new study investigated whether such an intervention helps patients with Stages I-III breast cancer undergoing initial chemotherapy. The data showed that women who underwent the intervention saw improvements in diet quality, physical activity levels, and pathological complete response. That outcome was a surprise for the study authors and others.

The Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF) Scientific Advisory Board and its Board of Directors recently announced its $60.2 million commitment to fund breast cancer research in 2023-2024, supporting more than 250 scientists at leading academic and medical institutions, including eight grants at Yale Cancer Center and Smilow Cancer Hospital.

Researchers at the Yale Cancer Center have found that diet and fitness interventions in early-stage breast cancer patients may improve their outcomes. Melinda Irwin, deputy director of the Yale Cancer Center and a senior author of the study, has dedicated her life to cancer prevention research. While investigating various types of cancer, Irwin has observed the challenges that patients face in adhering to chemotherapy — a common cancer treatment that has many adverse side effects, including hair loss, weight gain and fatigue. These side effects can be so severe that some patients stop seeking treatment. “Physicians hear from women all the time that they wish they had better guidance and tools to help them through chemotherapy, especially to ward off side effects like fatigue, neuropathy and changes in body weight,” Irwin said.

In the LEANer study, reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Tara Sanft, MD, and colleagues, researchers found that an exercise and nutrition intervention did not improve relative dose intensity (RDI) among patients receiving neoadjuvant or adjuvant chemotherapy for breast cancer, but did improve pathologic complete response rate among those receiving neoadjuvant chemotherapy.

Tara Sanft, MD, associate professor of medicine (medical oncology), led a study on the effects of exercise and diet on chemotherapy completion.