Declan Hennessy

Supervisors: Professor Fergal Grace and Dr Matt Wallen
School of Health and Life Sciences
d.hennessy@federation.edu.au
Doctor of Philosophy

“Feasibility and effectiveness of preoperative exercise therapy for cancer diagnoses in Victoria”

This study aims to generate new knowledge on the feasibility and effectiveness of preoperative exercise training (‘prehabilitation’) to induce clinically relevant improvements on cardiopulmonary function in patients with prostate, colorectal or breast cancer undergoing surgery.

This pre-registered clinical trial (ACTRN12619000214134) has received clinical and institutional research ethics approval to conduct a randomised controlled trial (RCT) of all new diagnoses of prostate, colorectal or breast cancer requiring surgery in Ballarat and Grampians region of Victoria, for a continuous 6 month period. Participants (m/f) consisting new breast, prostate or colorectal cancer diagnosis requiring surgery. Control participants will receive usual care, Intervention participants will undertake a supervised aerobic exercise program prior surgery. Physiological assessments will be undertaken at enrolment, at four weeks, then 30 days post surgery. Data will be obtained in compliance with best practice clinical measurement guidelines. Data will be compared (SPSS 24.0) by MANOVA and students t-tests, where a priori two-tailed α:0.05 and β:0.8 requires N=26 minimum population sample. Primary outcome measures are; aerobic capacity ventilatory threshold, while secondary outcomes are; Quality of Life (QoL),  immune function biomarkers and surgical complications.

This study will generate new locally relevant clinical-best-practice evidence relating to feasibility, safety and efficacy of prehabilitation in cancer patients.

Declan Hennessy is supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Fee-Offset Scholarship through Federation University. He is also supported by an Industry Co-Funded Scholarship with Western Alliance Academic Health Science Centre.