A Newcastle model of prehabilitation care for cancer patients prior to surgery, which aims to increase survival and improve quality of life, will be expanded to five rural and regional locations.

The project, led by Dr Jennifer Mackney, a John Hunter Hospital based clinical specialist physiotherapist and researcher with the University of Newcastle and HMRI has been awarded an $800,000 Cancer Institute NSW Accelerated Research Implementation Grant.

The effectiveness and implementation study will test the upscaling of the Newcastle prehabilitation model of care in five regional communities.
Hospital-based surgery is essential in cancer care. In Australia each year, it is estimated 165,000 people will be diagnosed with cancer. Around 132,000 of these people will require surgery, often multiple times.
Prehabilitation is an intervention program that helps people prepare for cancer treatment by improving their physical and mental health. It can include exercise, nutrition optimisation, and psychological support before surgery, helping people to recover faster, reduce the risk of complications, and feel more in control of their health.

Dr Mackney said prehabilitation had been shown to improve cancer survivorship and quality of life.
“Physical fitness and wellbeing are critical for better surgical outcomes. However, cancer and its treatments often impact physical activity, nutrition, and overall fitness, which can increase the risk of poor surgical outcomes,” she said.

Dr Mackney said multimodal prehabilitation before cancer surgery had been shown to improve cancer
patients’ physical function, halved postoperative complications and reduced postoperative hospital length of stay.
“However, access to formal multimodal prehabilitation programs in Australia is generally poor and people with cancer in regional and rural NSW experience an even greater disadvantage in accessing these programs.”

The Newcastle program is known as ‘C-SPRITES – Improving equity of access to prehabilitation services in
regional and rural NSW: Supported Prehabilitation – Improving fitness, ensuring well-being before surgery in people living with cancer’.
“This grant builds on work previously funded through the NSW Regional Cancer Research Network and will enable our research team to implement the C-SPRITES hybrid model of care within the regional and rural participant communities. It will be delivered by health providers in-person and via the Newcastle-based team using telehealth.

“Our aim is to improve access to multimodal prehabilitation services for patients with cancer who are living in rural and regional areas and assess the program’s effectiveness and acceptability for patients, hospitals, referrers and community partners.

This important medical research demonstrates the University’s commitment to helping its communities live better, healthier lives.