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Evaluating the association between exercise and cancer incidence

Principal Investigator
Name
Lee Jones
Degrees
Ph.D
Institution
City of Hope
Position Title
Professor
Email
About this CDAS Project
Study
PLCO (Learn more about this study)
Project ID
PLCO-1953
Initial CDAS Request Approval
Jul 22, 2025
Title
Evaluating the association between exercise and cancer incidence
Summary
Epidemiological evidence links exercise with reduced risk of multiple cancers, leading to consensus statements from organizations including the 2018 Physical Activity Guidelines Advisory Committee. However, the evidence supporting these statements is limited by studies with short follow-up periods and a small number of incident cancer events, differences in measurement and definition of exercise in meta-analysis, and potential heterogeneity in cancer screening practices between exercisers and non-exercisers.

In our prior work, we leveraged data from the PLCO, which addresses a number of prior identified limitations, to examine the impact of exercise on cancer incidence. In this project, we propose to continue use of PLCO data to more deeply examine the relationship between exercise and cancer incidence.
Aims

Aim 1: To use observational data from PLCO to perform a target trial emulation examining the relationship between exercise and cancer incidence and all-cause mortality. When the conduct of large randomized trials are not feasible or pose a significant challenge, observational analyses have been leveraged to inform the evidence base through the adoption of a target trial emulation approach. To our knowledge, no study to date has adopted a target trial emulation approach to examine the exercise – mortality link in any setting.
Aim 2. To examine the association between exercise frequency and cancer incidence.
Aim 3: To examine the relationship between exercise quality and cancer incidence and all-cause mortality.
Aim 4: To examine whether decline in exercise is a marker of early cancer incidence
Aim 5: To examine whether the relationship between exercise and cancer incidence differs as a function of polygenic risk score

Collaborators

1. Lennie Wong, City of Hope
2. Sitong Chen, MA, City of Hope
3. Jared Arbet, PhD, UCLA