changes of cea and ca15-3 biomarkers in the breast cancer patients following eight weeks of aerobic exercise

Background: exercise has positive effects on breast cancer evolution, including prevention, medical treatment, and aftercare clinical settings. plus, elevated serum levels of cea and ca15-3 as prognostic indicators were identified in patients with breast cancer. so, this study aimed to investigate the changes of cea and ca15-3 biomarkers in the breast cancer patients following eight weeks of aerobic exercise. methods: in this quasi-experimental study, 15 females with breast cancer with mean age (44.46±17.15 years), weight (70.53±5.18 kg) and body mass index (27.58±2.18 kg/m2) were randomly selected and performed aerobic training (for 8 weeks,3 sessions per week, with an intensity of 30%-60% heart rate reserve). before and after the intervention, while all patients were fasting for 12 hours, the levels of cea and ca15-3 were measured. the data obtained were analyzed, using paired sample t-test at a significance level of p<0.05. results: findings showed that the tumor marker (ca15-3) decreased following 8 weeks of aerobic exercise although it was not significant (p=0.091); cea level did not change significantly after exercise, either (p=0.542), but a significant decrease was observed in body mass index, body fat percentage and weight values after exercise (p=0.001) . conclusion: elevated ca15-3 and cea which are considered as the diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer was not observed in the study. exercise could reduce ca15- 3 insignificantly. also, aerobic exercise for eight weeks improved body composition indices, without increasing the level of fatigue or stress values, which may contribute to the prevention of the cancer prevalence in middle-aged women.