Dr. Kerry Courneya

And some of the randomized controlled trials that have been done have been very small studies, 50 patients, 60 patients.

So we're in the process of conducting some of these larger randomized controlled trials that would be equivalent to a drug trial.

You know, if you were testing a new chemotherapy,

A new immunotherapy, sometimes they're randomizing 500, 1,000 or more patients.

So some of those trials are going on right now in the exercise field.

And those will be viewed as the definitive trials, one way or the other, showing whether or not exercise can improve these cancer outcomes.

We call these surrogate endpoints, and are these going to be acceptable?

And there's a big debate whether or not...

drugs should be approved based on some of these intermediate or surrogate endpoints.

So, of course, as exercise oncology researchers, we just follow along what is acceptable within the – what would it take to get a drug approved would be the similar outcomes we look at.

So, in some of these ongoing trials, we're looking at disease-free survival, which is a well-accepted endpoint.

We're looking at a pathologic complete response to the –

intervention, which is another accepted one.

Whether or not circulating tumor cells or circulating tumor DNA might become an accepted endpoint demonstrating a clinical benefit, we'll see where that goes.

Don't take cancer lying down.

That's what we started with.

That would be the take-home message for patients.

It's a great one.

What's a myth about exercise or cancer that drives you crazy?

You might not like this myth, but the myth is that exercise improves everything.