Increasing physical activity levels in the least active colorectal cancer patients preparing for surgery.

SCRC: Can you share a brief overview of your project?

LH: Colorectal cancer is the fourth most common cancer in the UK. People who undergo colorectal cancer surgery do better if they are physically active. This project is the first step developing an inclusive intervention, to help less active people, get active. We will do 3 things:

1.  Review previous research exploring what has been done to increase activity in less active cancer patients.

2.  Interview a diverse group of patients who’ve had surgery. We want their thoughts on what to include in a future intervention and how it should be delivered. We’ll ask whether they think technology (eg smartphones) could help. Finally, we will ask what they think are important goals to achieve and what a good recovery looks like to them

3.  Set up a co-production panel of patient, public and health care professionals. This will ready us for the next project. Building on existing relationships with community groups will encourage people who do not usually take part in research to join the panel.

SCRC: What was the inspiration for your project?

LH: As frontline clinicians and academics with an interest in this area, we understand that those most likely to struggle whilst going through cancer treatment, including surgery, are often those with a number of medical problems and also more likely to be less active. From our viewpoint, current clinical care could significantly improve personalised treatment and support. However, there is limited research on less active individuals. Previous work has often not recruited less active people into their studies. Our team, a collaboration of clinicians at UH Sussex, patients and public and researchers at SHORE-C thought the best way to approach this is through co-production.

SCRC: How do you foresee your project leading to patient benefit? And when?

LH: For physical activity, the biggest benefit is moving people from being inactive to doing even light activities. Therefore, we will focus on this group. Creating an exercise intervention with patients and public members means it is more likely to be used and hopefully be successful.

SCRC: If the project is successful—what’s next?

LH: The next step will be to investigate an intervention in a clinical trial for which we will apply for funding. We hope in the future this will support high-risk patients to be best prepared for their cancer surgery. As a result, they would be more likely to recover well. This will benefit both individuals and the wider health service.

SCRC: Can you describe any interdisciplinary aspects of your projects?

LH: Our research group is a collaboration of clinical academics with backgrounds in cancer surgery, oncology, physiotherapy and nursing. The SHORE-C team have extensive experience evaluating health outcomes of cancer patients, with a broad research portfolio of expertise including neuropsychology social and health psychology.

SCRC: What do you think are the main challenges we face in cancer research? How does your project help to address this?

LH: Huge progress has been made in providing better treatments for cancer patients. Our particular interests reflect the challenges of a growing ageing population alongside multimorbidity, physical inactivity, lifestyle factors and socioeconomic deprivation which in combination can adversely affect outcomes, but could also be modifiable and/or mitigated. There is gathering evidence that physical activity is associated with outcomes across cancer. But the research challenge is to investigate the best ways to get people more active, that have subsequent outcome benefits to the individual and wider society.

SCRC: How have research mentors benefited your research?

LH: My research mentors instilled in me a passion for trying to use research to improve clinical care at the bedside. From their guidance I continue to seek to work out ways, using research, to improve care for our local population.

SCRC: If people want to follow you and your team or get updates as the project progresses, where can they get more info?

LH: We will provide updates as the project progresses both through our Hospital Trust’s comms, the SCRC newsletter and SHORE-C (Dr Sally Wheelwright & Dr Helena Harder).

Here’s my researchgate profile.