BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Immunol.
Sec. Cancer Immunity and Immunotherapy
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2025.1694045
Association of exercise and clinical outcomes in patients treated with immunotherapy for solid tumors
Provisionally accepted
Kimberly Loo1
Jessica A. Lavery2
Jessica Palmer1Winston Guo1
Whitney P. Underwood2Chaya S. Moskowitz2
Lee W. Jones2Allison S. Betof3*- 1Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, United States
- 2Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, United States
- 3Stanford University, Stanford, United States
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Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) have revolutionized the treatment of advanced cancers, but overall response rates remain modest and adjunct therapies to enhance efficacy of ICI are of great interest. This retrospective study examines the association between exercise and clinical outcomes in 258 patients with advanced solid tumors receiving ICI. The results suggest an association between exercise and better clinical outcomes, particularly in patients with high tumor mutation burden, though improvements in clinical benefit rate (58% vs. 51% for exercisers and non-exercisers, respectively) and one-year overall survival (67% vs. 58% for exercisers and non-exercisers, respectively) are not statistically significant. Our discovery-based findings in conjunction with preclinical evidence create a strong rationale for translational studies to formally investigate the effects of structured exercise therapy in combination with ICI in patients with solid tumors.
Keywords: exercise oncology, Immunotherapy response, Immune check inhibitor (ICI), Solid tumor, Tumor mutation burden
Received: 27 Aug 2025; Accepted: 13 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Loo, Lavery, Palmer, Guo, Underwood, Moskowitz, Jones and Betof. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Allison S. Betof, allison.betof@stanford.edu
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.