Cancer was the second leading cause of death worldwide in 2018 according to WHO. The disease burden continues to grow and has tremendous impacts on families and healthcare systems. Cancer-related fatigue is one of the most distressing symptoms experienced by cancer patients and has adverse impacts on the patients' quality of life and functioning. Both pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions could be adopted to tackle cancer-related fatigue. Among non-pharmacological interventions, exercise training is recommended by various authorities, such as the American College of Sports Medicine and the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, to manage cancer-related fatigue. In particular, resistance training with moderate-intensity exercise has been proven to be the most effective intervention for alleviating cancer-related fatigue. Chinese martial art that includes moderate-intensity physical training with a strong mind-body component is believed to offer mental well-being and stress reduction benefits in addition to the benefits of traditional resistance training, thus potentially enhancing the overall quality of life of cancer patients. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to identify the effectiveness of Chinese martial arts training in reducing cancer-related fatigue in cancer patients. Sixteen randomised controlled trials (RCTs) with 1365 cancer patients were included in this systematic review and meta-analysis. All of the included studies had implemented either Tai Chi or Baduanjin as the martial arts training intervention. The results of the meta-analysis showed that the overall effects of the trainings were not significant (standardised mean difference SMD: -0.23, 95% confidence interval CI: -0.57 to 0.11, p = 0.19). In the sub-group analysis, martial arts training administered over a shorter intervention period (less than 12 weeks) was found to yield a significant medium-to-large pooled effect size on the reduction of cancer-related fatigue (SMD: -0.77, 95% CI: -1.54 to -0.01, p = 0.05). PROSPERO Registration Number: CRD42023416590.
Lau et al. (Sun,) studied this question.