Colon cancer trial ties three years of coaching toward brisk walking to higher eight-year survival
The 2025 CHALLENGE trial, led by the Canadian Cancer Trials Group, found that people treated for stage 2 or 3 colon cancer were more likely to be alive eight years later if they received long-term exercise coaching. Enrollment began in 2009; 889 participants from six countries, mostly Canada and Australia, had finished surgery and chemotherapy for cancer that had not spread to distant organs, and they had to pass a fitness test before joining. Half received only health-education materials on exercise and diet. The other half also met a physical-activity consultant for three years, with a target similar to 45 to 60 minutes of brisk walking three or four times a week. Activity type and amount varied, but Norwegian researcher Tormod Skogstad Nilsen said participants achieved lasting increases in physical activity.
People in the exercise group were less likely to see their cancer return, develop a new cancer, or die: 93 had at least one of those setbacks, versus 131 in the education-only group. About 90 of every 100 people in the coached group were alive at eight years, compared with about 83 of every 100 without coaching—roughly 7 percentage points more. In cancer research, “living longer” means a larger share still alive at a given point, not a guaranteed extra number of years for any individual.
The findings do not automatically apply to every cancer or patient. Anna Campbell of Edinburgh Napier University said similar programmes could be considered for other stage II and III cancers in people with reasonable baseline fitness and no major comorbidities blocking moderate-to-vigorous activity. Nilsen noted that people who feel too unwell or do not want to exercise often skip such trials, so volunteers tend to be younger, healthier, and more motivated than typical clinic patients. Campbell argued the study’s main success was helping participants become independent, lasting exercisers. From January 2027, US breast-cancer centres must screen physical function and recommend exercise or physical therapy when needed, as doctors debate how to embed such care. Separate 2025 UK tracker research in more than 85,000 adults linked higher movement, including light chores, to a 26% lower risk of 13 cancers over about six years, echoing a 2016 analysis of 1.44 million adults in the US and Europe; those studies show association, not the cause-and-effect CHALLENGE demonstrated after colon-cancer treatment.
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