Exercise Prehabilitation and Radical Surgery for Pleural Mesothelioma

Prehabilitation is widely regarded as beneficial for patients undergoing surgery. Unfortunately, there is a paucity of reliable data on the value of prehabilitation for the surgical treatment of diffuse pleural mesothelioma. The extrapleural pneumonectomy and pleurectomy/decortication can be counted as some of the most radical thoracic procedures. As a result, research on the virtues of thoracic prehabilitation are both relevant to the topic and especially valuable. Despite the lack of specific data, the potential benefits of prehabilitation greatly outweigh the negligible risks provided it does not result in treatment delay. There is a preponderance of evidence showing that exercise benefits patients with chronic illness and cancer and may even delay recurrence and/or prolong survival. In the case of patients undergoing radical resection, exercise in any form will very likely confer resiliency and reduce the risks of complications. The challenge for providers should be to determine how to incorporate a prehabilitation regimen without delaying treatment rather than whether prehabilitation is beneficial.