A moving story

THREE years ago Stephen Smith’s wife noticed something odd about his chest. The nipple was inverted.

“When she asked me about it, I wasn’t too worried, but when I added that I’d also found a lump in my left breast, she insisted I get it checked out immediately,” says the 46-year-old mechanical engineer from Celbridge, Co Kildare.

A regular user of the gym in his workplace at Hewlett Packard, Stephen was fit but the diagnosis was swift — he had breast cancer, a one in 1,000 chance for men compared to one in eight for women.

There was no family history of cancer, but the father-of-two was diagnosed as triple-positive. When the tumour was removed, it measured 2.5cm in diameter.

Follow-up surgery took out the lymph nodes. One of the two lymph nodes closest to his tumour was cancerous. This led to lymphoedema — a side-effect of lymph-node removal. Lymphoedema can result in a chronic swelling of the arm, and increased susceptibility to infections.

Physiotherapy, including massage and bandaging of the arm, has controlled the problem, though Stephen’s left arm is bigger than normal. Thirty sessions of radiotherapy followed, after which Stephen’s physiotherapist, Síne Vasquez, advised him to exercise as soon as possible — exercise can play a role in preventing a recurrence of cancer.

“After being sick, you do wrap yourself a bit in cotton wool,” says Stephen, who’s back in the gym five mornings a week for 20 to 25 minutes, using the cross-trainer. “I was told that a good fitness level would aid in my recovery,” he says. “Throughout all the chemotherapy, surgery and other treatment, I think I was helped by my background level of fitness. I think that keeping fit and active has helped me recover.’’

Thirty minutes of moderate physical activity a day can reduced your lifetime risk of cancer, says the Irish Society for Chartered Physiotherapists, which this week launched a new programme, Move 4 Health, to encourage people to battle cancer with exercise.

“This campaign takes account of the fact that everyone has heard get-fit messages before — but where cancer is concerned, many people aren’t aware of the value of exercise in preventing cancer,” says Vasquez.

The statistics are grim: 120,000 people in Ireland either have, or have had, cancer, while one in three people will develop cancer.

An average of 30,000 new cases are diagnosed each year, a figure which is expected to rise to 40,000 by 2020.

The most common are non-melanoma skin cancers, as well as cancers of the prostate, the breast, the bowel and the lung.

Yet, for some cancers a risk reduction of up to 50% has been shown with physical activity, while for patients, physical activity can improve survival, fatigue and quality of life.

Research proves that a patient’s chances of surviving cancer increase with exercise — and that the risk of cancer recurrences falls, says Vasquez, who is based at Dublin’s Beaumont Hospital.

“There’s actually a lot of evidence that shows your chances of survival increase and your risk of cancer recurrence decreases with exercise, particularly with colon and some types of breast cancer,” she says.

According to studies, some types of breast cancer patients who follow a good exercise programme have a 40% less risk of cancer recurrences.

“With colon cancer, you have a 50% less risk of developing a colon cancer if you engage in regular exercise, and with some types of breast cancer there is a 25% less risk of getting it,” she says.

Studies show an overall, improved mortality rate for physically active colon cancer cases, while, Vasquez says, cancer-related fatigue is hugely helped by exercise.

In recent decades, she says, other countries have placed more emphasis on exercise and rehabilitation of cancer patients than Ireland — but we’re catching up.

“Cancer services have improved since 2006 — we have more exercise programmes starting and more of a focus on this area,” she says.

However, for recovering cancer survivors it is a struggle.

“Patients find it very difficult to get back into action after cancer treatments,” she says, pointing out that only 32% of breast cancer patients and 35% of colon cancer patients reached recommended levels of physical exercise.

* For more information, visit www.iscp.ie and www.cancer.ie