Effect of Prehabilitation on Head and Neck Cancer Patients (HNCANCERFIT)

November 27, 2025 updated by: Laura Deborah Locati

Does Prehabilitation be Able to Favorably Impact on the Pathway of Head and Neck Cancer Patients, Candidate to Surgery or Chemoradiotherapy as Primary Treatment? A Prospective Clinical Trial

The primary aim of the study is to investigate the feasibility of a prehabilitation program, which consists of a set of strategies including physical activity, nutritional support, and psychological counseling, carried out before and during cancer treatment for patients affected by head and neck tumors. About 4 weeks before surgery or the start of curative chemo-radiotherapy, the patient will begin the prehabilitation program, which will continue in parallel throughout the duration of the treatment and for up to 2 weeks after its completion. This prehabilitation program will include a combination of physical activity exercises, nutritional counseling, and psychological counseling sessions, all of which will be individualized for each patient. At the time of tumor diagnosis (T0), after 4 weeks of prehabilitation and before the start of the planned treatment (T1), 2 weeks after the end of treatment (T2), and after 6 months (T3), the patient will undergo a medical visit to collect anthropometric data, vital signs, a 6-minute walk test, and will complete a series of questionnaires aimed at assessing the risk of malnutrition, the development of anxiety and depression, and questionnaires to evaluate their quality of life. Throughout the duration of the study (i.e., up to T3, 6 months after the end of cancer treatment), the patient will wear an electronic watch, provided by the study, designed to measure vital signs, the number of daily steps, and the type and minutes of physical activity.

Study Overview

Status

Recruiting

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Oncological prehabilitation is defined as the process within the care pathway that takes place between the moment of cancer diagnosis and the initiation of acute treatments. Prehabilitation aims to improve physical, emotional, and cognitive health before the start of cancer therapy, with the ultimate goal of preventing and reducing treatment-related comorbidities and mortality. It has also proven effective in reducing the adverse events of cancer therapies during the active phase of treatment, making it potentially useful at any stage of the care pathway for cancer patients. The role of exercise, nutrition, and stress reduction in improving outcomes for cancer patients has long been recognized in surgical prehabilitation, but the evidence for benefits in non-surgical cancer treatments is weaker due to fewer randomized clinical trials. Improvements in muscle strength, a reduction in cancer-related comorbidities (e.g., dyspnea, cardiotoxicity, urinary incontinence), and a positive impact on quality of life, including social well-being and a reduction in anxiety, depression, and stress, have been demonstrated. However, the literature regarding the role of multimodal prehabilitation in head and neck cancers is even weaker: there is limited data on feasibility and effectiveness, with most studies focusing on optimizing nutritional status in malnourished patients or improving dysphagia, but lacking data from prospective clinical trials. This study is designed as a prospective, multicenter, experimental, non-randomized, uncontrolled interventional trial. The objectives are: i) to evaluate the feasibility of prehabilitation before and during curative treatment for patients with head and neck cancer; ii) to investigate the efficacy outcomes of prehabilitation; iii) to conduct a cost-effectiveness analysis of prehabilitation.

Feasibility will be assessed by measuring patient acceptance, adherence, and satisfaction with the program. To evaluate adherence to the physical activity intervention, patients will be provided with wearable devices capable of measuring daily steps, type, and minutes of activity. To evaluate adherence to nutritional support, subjects will be asked to complete a food diary along with telephone interviews conducted by expert professionals. Adherence to psychological support requires a combination of self-reported measures, clinical evaluation, and behavioral observation. A patient will be considered adherent if they complete at least 80% of the assigned tasks. The investigators will consider prehabilitation feasible if more than 50% of patients in the treatment group adhere to the program for the entire scheduled period. To investigate the efficacy of the treatment, validated questionnaires on quality of life and the patient's health status will be administered. Secondary endpoints will include the difference between questionnaire scores at the end versus the beginning of the intervention in terms of variables quantifying the response to cancer treatments and the patient's physiological status. It will also be possible to calculate both the cost-effectiveness and cost-utility balance of the intervention, considering the difference between the intervention arm and the historical control arm in terms of quality-adjusted life years. The activities carried out to achieve this objective will allow us to characterize the changes between the start and end of the intervention. Any significant (positive or negative) variation between the start and end of the intervention will be considered a result.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Estimated)

60

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Contact

Study Locations

  • Italy
    • Italy
      • Napoli, Italy, Italy, 80131
        • Recruiting
        • Istituto Nazionale Tumori IRCCS, Fondazione G. Pascale
        • Contact:
      • Pavia, Italy, Italy, 27100
        • Recruiting
        • Fondazione IRCCS Policlinico San Matteo
        • Contact:
      • Pavia, Italy, Italy, 27100
        • Recruiting
        • Istituti Clinici Scientifici Maugeri
        • Principal Investigator:
          • Laura D Locati, MD, PhD
        • Contact:
      • Pavia, Italy, Italy, 27100
        • Recruiting
        • National Center of Adrotherapy Oncology
        • Contact:
      • Sassari, Italy, Italy, 07100

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Age ≥ 18 years
  • Candidate to curative treatment (platinum-based chemoradiotherapy or surgery + RT +/- CT)
  • ECOG PS 0-1
  • Fit for prehabilitation program (medical, physical, and mental conditions that don't contraindicate physical exercise and oral nutrition)
  • Ability to understand and adhere to exercise or lifestyle modifications
  • Date of treatment beginning no later than 60 days from baseline assessment
  • Provide valid informed consent prior to any study procedure

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Unstable medical condition requiring immediate attention (e.g uncontrolled heart failure; unstable angina; severe respiratory distress) must prioritize
  • Patients with very advanced stage of disease, candidate to palliative treatment
  • Uncontrolled cancer symptoms or pain
  • Need for early treatment initiation
  • Frailty subjects: patients with severe functional impairment
  • Significant muscle wasting, limiting the participation in prehabilitation exercise
  • Severe cognitive or mental health issues, precluding prehabilitation

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Treatment
  • Allocation: Non-Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Surgery plus (chemo)radiotherapy
Head and neck cancer patients undergoing surgery before (chemo)radiotherapy according to stage and risk factors.
Other: Prehabilitation before surgery
Prehabilitation multimodal program will start about 4 weeks before the surgery and will be continued until 2 weeks after the surgical intervention. Multimodal program comprises physical exercise, nutritional intervention, and psychological support provided before and during curative treatment for HNC patients.
Other Names:
  • physical exercise
  • psychological support
  • nutritional intervention
Experimental: Chemo-radiotherapy
Head and neck cancer patients undergoing definitive concomitant chemo-radiotherapy (CRT) according to stage and risk factors.
Other: Prehabilitation before and during CRT
Prehabilitation multimodal program will start about 4 weeks CRT and will be continued in parallel until 2 weeks after the end. Multimodal program comprises physical exercise, nutritional intervention, and psychological support provided before and during curative treatment for HNC patients.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Feasibility of multimodal prehabilitation
Time Frame: From enrollment to the end of prehabilitation program, 2 weeks after the end of curative treatment
The feasibility will be measured by the rate of adherence to prehabilitation interventions. To assess the adherence to the physical activity intervention, the investigators will equip patients with commercially available activity trackers. Patients will wear the activity tracker until 6 months after the end of treatment. To assess the adherence to the nutritional intervention a telephone 24-hour dietary recall (24HR) interview will be employed. 24HR is a retrospective method that monitors and assesses the food and drinks consumption of the subjects during the previous day. Adherence to psycho-oncological support requires a combination of self-report measure, clinical assessment and behavioral observation. The three reports will be aggregated to a one reported value: a patient will be considered adherent to prehabilitation program if they will be adherent to each intervention.
From enrollment to the end of prehabilitation program, 2 weeks after the end of curative treatment
Efficacy of multimodal prehabilitation
Time Frame: From enrollment to 2 weeks after the end of oncological treatment
A comparison between T0 (cancer diagnosis) and the other time points (T1: after 4 weeks of prehabilitation, T2: 2 weeks after the end of oncological treatments, T3: at 6 months of follow-up) will be made to exploit any differences. To test the efficacy of physical activity, the functional capacity over time will be monitored, measuring as the difference in absolute change in 6-minute walk distance (6MWD) between T0 and T1 and between T0 and T2. In addition, the Handgrip strength (HGS) will be employed as a biomarker of overall health status. Two questionaries (i.e. NRS-2002 and MUST) will be used as screening tools to exploit the risk of malnourishment. ASonA, Distress Thermometer, and FACT- HN will be used to test the psycho-oncological intervention efficacy. The three reports will be aggregated to a one reported value: the program will be considered effective if each intervention will be effective.
From enrollment to 2 weeks after the end of oncological treatment
Cost-effectiveness of multimodal prehabilitation
Time Frame: From the enrollment to 6 months after the end of the oncological treatment
To evaluate the sustainability, the cost-utility analysis of the prehabilitation intervention will be evaluated. Cost Utility Analysis is an economic analysis comparing the incremental cost of a program to the incremental health improvement in terms of quality adjusted life years (QALYs). The EORTC QLQ-C30 questionnaire will be used to predict EQ-5D-5L through a mapping algorithm, which is one of the most used instrument for measuring QALYs.
From the enrollment to 6 months after the end of the oncological treatment

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Laura Deborah Locati

Collaborators

CNAO National Center of Oncological Hadrontherapy
Fondazione IRCCS Policlinico San Matteo di Pavia
Azienda Ospedaliero Universitaria di Sassari
Istituto Nazionale Tumori IRCCS - Fondazione G. Pascale

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

September 9, 2024

Primary Completion (Estimated)

August 1, 2026

Study Completion (Estimated)

August 1, 2026

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

September 6, 2024

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

September 9, 2024

First Posted (Actual)

September 19, 2024

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

December 5, 2025

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

November 27, 2025

Last Verified

October 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • PNRR-TR1-2023-12377022 (Other Grant/Funding Number: Italian Ministry of Health through PNRR resources (PNRR: M6/C2_CALL 2023))

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

UNDECIDED

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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