Cancer Exercise & Physiotherapy Lab

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Cancer Exercise & Physiotherapy Lab

The Cancer Exercise & Physiotherapy Lab focuses on understanding the roles of exercise in prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation in cancer.

08/12/2025

We are excited to announce that the BME Hub has been endorsed by the American College of Sports Medicine! Check out BME Hub using the link in our bio.

07/16/2025

Curious about what to expect from the new “Exercising with Bone Metastases” professional development course? Swipe to meet the Teaching Team and explore the covered topics! The course is designed by leading experts in cancer and exercise and is now available for FREE. Enroll through the BME Hub, or with the link in our bio.

07/10/2025

Mark your calendars for this upcoming talk with Karen Basen-Engquist, PhD, MPH this month!

Active Living After Cancer: Translating What We Know Into What We Do
🗓️ Date: July 31, 2025
🕛 Time: 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM PT
📍 Location: Diamond Family Theatre, BC Cancer Research Centre & via Zoom

💡 Extensive research shows that physical activity improves cancer-related outcomes—from improving quality of life to extending survival. Yet many people struggle to stay active after a diagnosis of cancer, and scalable solutions are limited.

Join us for a presentation on the evidence behind exercise in cancer care and translating current research into practice.

🔗 Zoom details:

Meeting ID: 897 9864 5767
Password: 663758

Hosts: Kristin Campbell and Helen McTaggart-Cowan

👥 Open to people with lived experience, caregivers, clinicians, researchers, trainees and anyone interested in cancer survivorship.

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07/02/2025

Members of the CEP Lab attended the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer (MASCC) Annual Meeting last week in Seattle. This conference displays cutting-edge research and serves as an opportunity for international colleagues to engage in interdisciplinary supportive cancer care. This year’s theme was “Informed Decisions in Supportive Cancer Care”.

Dr. Kristin Campbell presented “Building a Community of Practice to address limited access to breast cancer supportive care in Canada using Project ECHO”. Dr. Kelcey Bland presented on “Knowledge mobilization product co-design to advance exercise recommendations for people with bone metastases”. Sabrina Cao presented on “Expanding supportive care through the implementation of an exercise program in advanced lung cancer: A qualitative study”. Finally, Dr. Ignacio Català gave a recorded lecture for the session “Immunotherapy: What is the emerging evidence and guidance for exercise as part of managing toxicities”.

06/10/2025

Last week, the CEPL had the pleasure of spending time with Bárbara Burgos Mansilla (), from Universidad de La Frontera in Chile. Bárbara shared some of her impressive, community-focused oncology rehab work with us & took in a few of our CEPL activities! Thank you, Bárbara; we really enjoyed the visit! 🇨🇦 🇨🇱

06/04/2025

The CHALLENGE Trial by the Canadian Cancer Trials Group (CCTG) spanned 15 years, 889 patients, and 55 sites. It provides the first robust evidence that structured exercise can significantly improve cancer survival and recurrence. Notably, the benefit from exercise delivered after surgery and adjuvant chemotherapy was similar to many current standard drug treatments.

These ground-breaking findings were presented at and published in the New England Journal of Medicine. We congratulate everyone who was involved in this trial, including many current and past members of the CEP Lab who delivered the interventions, as well as the participants.

06/03/2025

We are proud to announce that Gillian Smith, a former MSc student in our lab, is speaking at the Centre for Aging SMART’s career panel. This hybrid lunch and learn is for everyone interested in careers in industry. We especially recommend this panel for trainees looking to use their degrees outside of academia.

Tuesday, June 10, 2025
12 pm to 1 pm
7th floor lunchroom, Robert HN Ho Research Centre, 2635 Laurel Street OR on Zoom

Please RSVP using the link in our bio.

Gillian Smith is an analyst with Statistics Canada. She graduated from UBC with an MSc. in Rehabilitation Science in 2024; her thesis examined how exercise affects colon cancer survival. Gillian also holds a BSc. in Physiology from McGill University and worked in cancer research at Montreal Children’s Hospital before her MSc. Gillian now works in the Health Statistics Branch at Statistics Canada, developing data strategies and writing analytical reports on health survey data.

We can’t wait to hear you speak, Gillian!

03/08/2025

We were very fortunate to be invited to present at the Chilean Physiotherapy Oncology meeting and International Exercise & Chronic Conditions conference. We had an amazing time & wonderful, gracious hosts. Muchos Gracias!

03/03/2025

Register now for this month’s ISEO webinar with Dr. Jennifer Ligibel!

Dr. Jennifer Ligibel is an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School and a Senior Physician in the Breast Oncology Center at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Dr. Ligibel’s research focuses on the impact of energy balance factors, such as physical activity and body weight, upon cancer risk and outcomes. She has conducted more than a dozen randomized trials evaluating the impact of exercise and weight loss interventions on endpoints such as cardiorespiratory fitness, biomarkers associated with cancer risk and outcomes, body composition, and quality of life in cancer patients and survivors. This work has culminated in the design and implementation of the Breast Cancer Weight Loss (BWEL) Trial, the only fully powered Phase III clinical trial designed to test the impact of a weight loss intervention on invasive disease-free survival in women with early-stage breast cancer and obesity (NCT02750826).

Link in bio to register 🔗

02/26/2025

Registration is now open for the next session of our ISEO webinar series! This month’s speaker is Dr. Patricia C. Brum.

In this talk, Dr. Patricia C. Brum will address the benefits of aerobic exercise training to combat skeletal muscle wasting in cancer, focusing on the mechanisms by which aerobic exercise training counteracts cancer cachexia. The relevance of the theme is the fact that skeletal myopathy has been identified as a major comorbidity of cancer patients leading to a poor prognosis associated with reduced antineoplastic tolerability, shortness of breath, early fatigue, and exercise intolerance. Dr. Patricia C. Brum will present data from a recently published study that shows the relationship between muscle functionality and non-small cell lung cancer. At the end of the talk, the audience will be aware of the benefits of aerobic exercise training in cancer cachexia and its impact in muscle protestasis providing scientific support for using exercise training as an adjuvant strategy for prevention and treatment of cancer.

To attend this webinar, please register through the link in our bio.

02/25/2025

Translated materials are now available in Hindi on the BME Hub! Explore the resources in our bio. 🌎

02/11/2025

📢 Participants Needed for Cancer Rehabilitation Research Study

Are you a cancer survivor in British Columbia? Researchers at UBC are conducting a study on a virtual rehabilitation program designed to help individuals recover from cancer treatment.

We are recruiting participants who: ✔️ Have a history of breast, colorectal, lymphoma, or head & neck cancer ✔️ Have completed treatment ✔️ Are struggling with recovery or treatment side effects

This study includes: 🔹 Individualized exercise programs with mobile & wearable support 🔹 Weekly education modules for self-management 🔹 Remote clinical support with an exercise rehab specialist

If you are interested in participating, contact us at exercise.research@ubc.ca or 604-827-1914.

🔗 Learn more in our bio!

Address

Vancouver, BC

Telephone

+16048271914

Website

https://linktr.ee/cancerexerciseresearch

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