NCT07104630

Pulmonary Rehabilitation in Advanced Lung Cancer Survivors

• Status: Recruiting
• Phase: Phase 2
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 85 (estimated)
• Sponsor: Case Comprehensive Cancer Center · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

This study is for people who have previously been diagnosed with advanced stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Many people with advanced stage NSCLC have trouble breathing and feel tired. People may be eligible for this study if they have advanced stage NSCLC and feel short of breath some of the time. NSCLC survivors may also experience things like fatigue and a lower quality of life. Pulmonary rehabilitation is a type of supportive treatment that may improve these symptoms. This study has two parts. The first part is a randomized trial where half of the participants receive eight weeks of pulmonary rehabilitation. The other half of participants do not do pulmonary rehabilitation and instead receive the treatment that their doctors would normally recommend. The purpose of this part of the research study is to understand if pulmonary rehabilitation can help people with advanced stage NSCLC have better functioning and less shortness of breath. The other part of the research study is an interview study. The purpose of doing interviews is to understand any challenges or obstacles that people with advanced stage NSCLC may have regarding pulmonary rehabilitation, as well as oncology care providers have with their participants going to pulmonary rehabilitation.

Detailed description

Lung cancer (LC) is the second most common cancer in the world, (1) and the third most common cancer in the United States of America (USA) (2). Because more lung cancer screenings are being done (3-5) and because there have been advances in treatments, people will all stages of LC are living longer, including those with advanced LC. Research has shown that fatigue and breathing issues are commonly experienced by LCS (6). These symptoms can hurt the long-term health and quality of life of LCS (6-8). Currently, there are not many interventions that are used to help these symptoms for LCS. For people with non-cancer-related respiratory disease, like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a type of supportive treatment called pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) can improve symptoms like difficulty breathing, fatigue, difficulty exercising, and health-related quality of life (9-11). PR is a holistic treatment plan that includes a full assessment and is then personalized to fit each person's needs. This could include things like exercise training, education, and behavior change (12). PR is considered standard-of-care for people with COPD (13). PR includes physical activity, which is something that is encouraged in all cancer survivors. There is not much research that talks about the barriers to physical activity in survivors of lung cancer, although fatigue may be one of the most significant ones (14). Doctors may also not feel comfortable encouraging physical activities in people with lung cancer due to concerns about the safety and feasibility in exercise in people with lung cancer (15). However, PR is safe and effective in people with chronic pulmonary conditions, with well-established pathways and programs for these people. As stated above, LCS have persistent fatigue and difficulty breathing, which is often worse in people who have metastatic LC. There is limited, high-quality evidence supporting interventions designed specifically for LCS with advanced disease. PR is potentially a safe and available intervention to improve functional status in LCS with early stage disease, and more research is needed to understand its impact on LCS with metastatic NSCLC treated with modern therapies.

Conditions

• Non-small Cell Lung Cancer Stage III
• Non-small Cell Lung Cancer Stage IV
• Non-small Cell Lung Cancer
• Lung Cancer

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Pulmonary Rehabilitation (PR)	Participants will complete an 8-week course of PR, administered by certified respiratory therapists. For each week of the course, participants will attend two PR sessions. Each session will review topics such as physical function, nutrition, and psychosocial health. Participants will also be given an "exercise prescription" to complete throughout the 8-week course. The "exercise prescription" will include individualized cardiopulmonary activities.
OTHER	No intervention: Usual care	Participants will receive standard-of-care, publicly available education on Nutrition and Cancer Survivors and Physical Activity and Cancer Survivors published by the American Institute for Cancer Research.

Timeline

• Start date: 2026-03-16
• Primary completion: 2026-10-01
• Completion: 2028-12-01
• First posted: 2025-08-05
• Last updated: 2026-04-13

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States