Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) is the most common form of childhood cancer and cure rates for children with ALL are higher than 80% (Pui et al 2008). As survival rates improve there is a need to focus on the long term health of survivors. It is widely recognised that engagement in physical activity (PA) incurs positive benefits on both health and quality of life.
Objectives:
The overall aim of this study was to obtain an objective measure of the PA levels of a sample of adolescent survivors of ALL utilising Actigraph GT3XP activity monitors and to compare PA levels of survivors of ALL with recommended physical activity levels.
Methods:
This study was conducted in conjunction with the Haematology/Oncology Department at Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital Crumlin (OLCHC). Participants included patients who were 10 years old or greater, were at least two years post completion of treatment for Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL), with no current musculoskeletal injury limiting physical activity, able to follow instructions and were attending OLCHC for review between October 2014 and April 2015. Ethical approval was granted by the Ethics Committee at OLCHC. Patients meeting criteria were sent a letter and a Participant Information Leaflet (PIL) inviting them to participate at least 7 days before their attendance at the clinic. Height and weight and the subsequent BMI was recorded and a GT3XP Actigraph was initialised with an agreed a time and date for wear time to start for a period of 5 days (to include 2 weekend days). This project was supported by funding from the O’Driscoll O’Neill Bursary
Results:
Fifteen adolescents attending OLCHC for review met the criteria and agreed to participate. The Actigraph PA monitor failed to initialise properly for one participant leaving information from 14 participants included in the study. Of these participants 7 were male and 7 female with a mean (+/-SD) age of 13 (+/-2.42) years. Results indicated that a greater proportion of female subjects had a BMI classification as overweight (n=5/7, 71.4%) as compared to males (n=2/7, 26.6%). All subjects in this study met the recommended 60 minutes of Moderate to Vigorous Physical Activity (MPVA) per day with a mean (+/-SD) MPVA of 117.5 (+/- 44.31) minutes. Male subjects appeared to have a greater mean MPVA compared to female subjects. Males had a mean (SD) MPVA of 128.2 mins (+/- 52.8) whereas females had a mean (SD) MPVA of 106.9 mins (+/- 34.7). Statistical analysis was not appropriate due to the relatively small numbers in the study
Conclusion: This study supports the findings of previous research literature that suggests that survivors of ALL are more likely to have elevated BMI with females more likely than males to be overweight or obese (Nam et al., 2015). It is encouraging that all of the survivors of ALL in this study appeared to meet the recommended MPVA. There appears to be a lack of consensus in the research literature regarding the PA levels of adolescent survivors of ALL with some literature reporting reduced PA levels (Järvelä et al., 2010) whilst other research into this population reports PA levels that meet recommended levels (Heath et al., 2010). The authors acknowledge that the results of this current study may not be generalisable due to the relatively small numbers involved and further research is warranted.
