Weight management intervention for estrogen positive (ER+) breast cancer survivors

NEWDAY-ABC (North England Women’s Diet and ActivitY After Breast Cancer) trial is a bespoke weight management and behaviour change intervention for women treated for early-stage estrogen-receptor positive (ER+ve) breast cancer (BC) with a body mass index (BMI) of ≥25 kg/m2. Many women are overweight or report further weight gain during and after BC-treatment which has been linked to chemotherapy and endocrine treatment, being (or becoming) postmenopausal after diagnosis, changes in metabolism and food preferences and decreased activity levels. Excess body weight before diagnosis, and gaining weight during treatment indicates poorer quality of survivorship than healthy weight women. Women who present with overweight or obesity BMI scores and gain further weight also report greater incidences of cancer related fatigue compared to those with a stable weight.

To address these issues and due to the complex nature of weight management, NEWDAY-ABC was co-designed with BC-survivors and health care professionals (HCPs) prior to the COVID-19 outbreak. However, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, refinements had to be made to the intervention to enable virtual delivery options, allowing the trial to proceed.

Study aims

To design and test the effectiveness of a practically implementable method of providing sustained personalised lifestyle support to help overweight/obese women recovering from ER+ve breast cancer to achieve and maintain a healthy body weight.

Methods

Co-design the intervention with patients (Phase 1), before testing its effectiveness in a randomised controlled trial with Lifestyle advisors delivering the lifestyle intervention (focusing on physical activity and diet support) in community settings (Phase 2).

Impact

This multi-site study will lead to the refinement of a bespoke patient-centred breast cancer weight management intervention, designed in collaboration with cancer survivors and healthcare practitioners. The intervention will overcome some of the barriers to cancer survivors accessing, attending and adhering to weight management support post cancer treatment. It will also emphasise the elements of cancer specific weight management interventions that cancer survivors believe are most important for improving their quality of survivorship.

Partners

Fully funded by Yorkshire Cancer Research but the lead research institution is Northumbria University. Partner delivery sites include: Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Fundation Trust, Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust.