Impact of Respiratory Training in Lymphoma Survivors

Cancer survivorship has been steadily improving as a result of earlier detection and improved therapies. Behind cancer recurrence, the primary cause of morbidity and mortality among survivors stems from the onset of cardiovascular disease that arises in part due to cardiotoxic chemo and radiation therapies. The increased risk of cardiovascular disease is particularly high in specific survivor populations, such as lymphoma survivors. Although exercise has been demonstrated to improve both recovery after cancer therapy and quality of life, both physical and logistical hurdles may prohibit certain patients from accessing this intervention. High-resistance inspiratory muscle strength training (IMST) is a time-efficient (\~5 minutes/day) form of exercise that employs an affordable, handheld device which impedes inspiratory breathing to train the diaphragm and accessory respiratory muscles and has demonstrated improvements in both cardiovascular health (9 mmHg reduction in systolic blood pressure, 45% improvement in vascular endothelial function) and improve exercise tolerance (12% increase in treadmill exercise time) in generally healthy midlife/older adults. Therefore, this approach may circumvent preventative hurdles to exercise, and augment the effects of exercise for capable survivors.