Zacharoula Sidiropoulou, Senior Consultant Breast Surgical Oncologist at Hospital São Francisco Xavier, shared on LinkedIn:
“There are things you carry with you from the OR to everyday life.
Over the years, I have seen patients with the same diagnosis and the same operation walk very different roads afterwards. Same surgery, same technique, different recovery.
What often separated them had little to do with what happened in the room: how well-nourished they were, whether they moved, whether they slept, whether anyone had asked about their stress or their smoking before the date was set.
The difference is not just luck!
That is why I am so happy and proud to be lecturing two modules of Lifestyle Medicine and Oncology in the Greenford University.
The first is the why. Cancer biology and modifiable risk: how nutrition, physical activity, body composition, alcohol, sleep and stress act on the disease itself, through inflammation, insulin and IGF-1 signaling, immune surveillance and epigenetic change.
It is also where we learn to differentiate the solid evidence from what is simply sold to frightened patients, because lifestyle medicine in oncology is complementary to treatment, never an alternative to it.
The second is the how. Surgical oncology: prehabilitation, enhanced recovery, and rehabilitation after cancer surgery. This module is my chance to teach what I wish I had been taught earlier: that prehabilitation and lifestyle intervention are not a soft addition to cancer surgery; they are part of it, from diagnosis through survivorship.
Teaching alongside colleagues from across the world has already given me as much as I hope to give.
Thank you to everyone who made this possible.
Thank you dream team: Sunil Kumar for the wonderful program you landed on paper; Guida Da Ponte, Vasco Fonseca and Celine Tabche.
The four of you: if you didn’t exist, someone would have had to invent you!”
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