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Background: Performing physical activity may provide analgesic benefit, although this effect is more established for noncancer pain rather than cancer pain. The relationship between physical activity and pain outcomes in adults with and without a history of cancer was examined., Methods: Totals of 51,439 adults without a cancer history and 10,651 adults with a cancer history from the Cancer Prevention Study II Nutrition Cohort were included. Exposures included self-reported moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) as well as 2-year change in MVPA. Pain outcomes included pain intensity (primary outcome) and analgesic use (secondary outcome)., Results: MVPA was inversely associated with pain intensity for adults with (odds ratio [OR], 0.84 [≥15 metabolic equivalent of task (MET) h/week vs. <7.5 MET h/week]; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.76-0.93) and without (OR, 0.79; 95% CI, 0.75-0.82) a history of cancer. Compared to remaining inactive, participants who became sufficiently active (cancer: OR, 0.76; 95% CI, 0.68-0.86; no cancer: OR, 0.73; 95% CI, 0.69-0.77), became inactive (cancer: OR, 0.79; 95% CI, 0.71-0.88; no cancer: OR, 0.84; 95% CI, 0.80-0.89), or remained sufficiently active (cancer: OR, 0.66; 95% CI, 0.60-0.72; no cancer: OR, 0.62; 95% CI, 0.60-0.65) also reported less pain. Physical activity was not related to analgesic use., Conclusions: The relationship between physical activity and pain intensity was not substantially different between people with and without a history of cancer. Cancer survivors who perform more activity, or who increase their activity, may experience less pain than cancer survivors who consistently perform less., Plain Language Summary: People who have had cancer often experience ongoing pain. Being physically active may help reduce the intensity of the pain they experience., (© 2024 The Authors. Cancer published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Cancer Society.)

Background: High levels of sedentary behavior may negatively affect health outcomes in cancer survivors. A systematic review and meta-analysis was performed to clarify whether postdiagnosis sedentary behavior is related to survival, patient-reported outcomes, and anthropometric outcomes in cancer survivors., Methods: The Ovid MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL (The Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature), and SPORTDiscus databases were searched from study inception to June 2019. Studies of adults who had been diagnosed with cancer that examined the association between sedentary behavior and mortality, patient-reported outcomes (eg, fatigue, depression), or anthropometric outcomes (eg, body mass index, waist circumference) were eligible for inclusion. Meta-analyses were performed to estimate hazard ratios for the highest compared with the lowest levels of sedentary behavior for all-cause and colorectal cancer-specific mortality outcomes. The ROBINS-E (Risk of Bias in Nonrandomized Studies-of Exposures tool) and the GRADE (Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation) system were used to assess the risk of bias and the strength of evidence, respectively., Results: Thirty-three eligible publications from a total of 3569 identified articles were included in the review. A higher level of postdiagnosis sedentary behavior was associated with an increased risk of all-cause mortality (hazard ratio, 1.22; 95% CI, 1.06-1.41; heterogeneity [I 2 statistic], 33.8%) as well as colorectal cancer-specific mortality (hazard ratio, 1.53; 95% CI, 1.14-2.06; I 2 , 0%). No clear or consistent associations between sedentary behavior and patient-reported or anthropometric outcomes were identified. The risk of bias in individual studies ranged from moderate to serious, and the strength of evidence ranged from very low to low., Conclusions: Although avoiding high levels of sedentary behavior after a cancer diagnosis may improve survival, further research is required to help clarify whether the association is causal., (© 2019 American Cancer Society.)