Preventing frailty in older cancer survivors

Emerging data suggest that cancer treatments can accelerate the aging process in older cancer survivors, increasing their risk for developing frailty, a state of aging that implies an increasing vulnerability to stressors. Frailty may explain the greater level of disability, increased fall risk, lower physical functioning, and increased mortality in cancer survivors relative to their healthy peers. Obviously, reducing frailty would be of benefit to the cancer survivor, and exercise training may hold promise as a therapeutic approach to reducing frailty in older cancer survivors. The purpose of this review was to summarize the current understanding of (1) the linkages between cancer, cancer treatment, and the development of frailty; and (2) the role that exercise training might play in reducing this condition.