Key result
Cardio-oncology rehab improves fitness and functional outcomes, but CV event benefits remain uncertain.
Why the study?
Cardiovascular toxicity and pre-existing cardiovascular disease can affect cancer-treatment tolerance, functional recovery, and survivorship.
Cardio-oncology rehabilitation should be individualized based on treatment context, symptoms, and functional capacity, integrating exercise with guideline-based risk assessment and monitoring.
May support individualized cardio-oncology rehab for fitness gains; leaves open effects on therapy-related cardiac dysfunction and events.
Background/Objectives: Cardiovascular toxicity and pre-existing cardiovascular disease can affect cancer-treatment tolerance, functional recovery, and survivorship. This narrative review aimed to summarize current evidence and propose an author-derived risk-adaptive clinical framework for adult cardio-oncology rehabilitation (CORE), organized around exercise prescription, multimodal monitoring, and implementation. Methods: PubMed/MEDLINE and the Web of Science Core Collection were searched from database inception through 27 July 2026. Guidelines, systematic reviews, randomized and non-randomized clinical studies, feasibility studies, and selected mechanistic sources were prioritized according to their relevance to the three review domains. Evidence was classified as direct clinical, guidance/synthesis, feasibility/implementation, or mechanistic/conceptual; no PRISMA protocol, formal risk-of-bias assessment, or meta-analysis was undertaken. Results: Clinical trials support improvements in cardiorespiratory fitness, selected cardiovascular risk factors, and functional outcomes in some settings, but effects on cancer therapy-related cardiac dysfunction, cardiovascular events, and mortality remain uncertain. Direct evidence is dominated by breast-cancer cohorts and women, although mixed-cancer, lymphoma, and lung-cancer studies broaden the functional evidence base. An evidence-informed approach is to individualize aerobic and resistance exercise to treatment context, symptoms, functional capacity, and clinical stability, with reassessment linked to actionable findings; the proposed pathway remains conceptual and non-validated. Artificial intelligence, digital twins, omics, and monitoring-guided exercise-dose adjustment remain investigational. Conclusions: CORE is best regarded as exercise-centered care linked to guideline-based risk assessment and clinically indicated reassessment. Prospective studies should test therapy-specific timing, risk-stratified delivery, monitoring-guided dose adjustment, clinical endpoints, equity, and cost-effectiveness.
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Luo et al. (2026) conducted a review in Cancer and cancer survivorship with cardiovascular risk or toxicity. Cardio-oncology rehabilitation (CORE) was evaluated. Cardio-oncology rehabilitation improves cardiorespiratory fitness and functional outcomes in some settings, but its effects on cancer therapy-related cardiac dysfunction and cardiovascular events remain uncertain.
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