Zechariah Cummings, “Focus on Power: A Qualitative Analysis for the Development of a Lifestyle Behavior Prehabilitation Program for Soft-Tissue Sarcoma Patients”
Mentor: Whitney Morelli, MCW Cancer Center
Poster #88

Common treatments of soft-tissue (ST) localized extremity and trunk sarcoma include radiation, surgery and chemotherapy. These treatments result in excellent local disease control, however, during the post-treatment period, ST sarcoma patients experience high rate of wound complications (about 35% of patients). Evidence indicates poor preoperative functional status and malnutrition are associated with longer hospital stays which leads to higher complication rates and worse functional outcomes following treatments for ST sarcoma. Preoperative exercise training and proper nutritional intakes have shown to reduce hospital stay and reduce postoperative complications. Additionally, interventions in preoperative exercise (prehabilitation) and nutrition interventions have demonstrated benefits for other cancer populations and non-cancer orthopedic surgery patients. However, to date, there is no data to support the development of a lifestyle prehabilitation program in ST sarcoma patients. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to obtain feedback from soft tissue sarcoma survivors on their experiences with lifestyle behaviors pre- and post-diagnosis and how their ST sarcoma treatment affected their lifestyle behaviors. The final goal of this project is to use a patient-centered approach to adapt current prehabilitation programs for a ST sarcoma population. Through this study we will be collecting feedback and preferences via one-on-one interviews on the participants experience with physical activity and nutrition programing pre- and post-diagnosis, as well as their feedback on preferences for a lifestyle prehabilitation program. The results from this study will be used to develop a lifestyle prehabilitation program for ST sarcoma patients to be tested in a future pilot study.