Galliford, M., Robinson, S., Bridge, P., & Carmichael, M. (2017). Salute to the sun: A new dawn in yoga therapy for breast cancer. Journal of Medical Radiation Sciences, 64, 232–238.

STUDY PURPOSE: To synthesize published research to assess if yoga improves physical and psychosocial quality of life in patients receiving treatment for breast cancer.

TYPE OF STUDY: Systematic review

DATABASES USED: Scopus, Medline, PubMed, Science Direct, Cochrane, ProQuest

YEARS INCLUDED: (Overall for all databases) January 2009 to July 2014

INCLUSION CRITERIA: Articles with a yoga or mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) intervention that reported outcomes related to physical or psychosocial quality of life in patients with breast cancer; studies with 15 or more participants were included. 

EXCLUSION CRITERIA: Articles that were duplicate, inaccessible, or with irrelevant records.

TOTAL REFERENCES RETRIEVED: 395

EVALUATION METHOD AND COMMENTS ON LITERATURE USED: Blinded/duplicated two-stage screening approach to select appropriate articles; critical review and article scoring was independently done by two researchers

FINAL NUMBER STUDIES INCLUDED: 38

TOTAL PATIENTS INCLUDED IN REVIEW: Not reported

SAMPLE RANGE ACROSS STUDIES: RCTs: 18 to 410; NRTs: 15 to 286; otherwise not noted 

KEY SAMPLE CHARACTERISTICS: RCTs: average age was 58.3 years; NRTs: average age was 50.3 years; all participants in all studies were women except for nine men included in one study; all studies look at patients with breast cancer though further details were not specified (exact phase/type of treatment, etc.)

PHASE OF CARE: Not specified or not applicable; details about each study’s participants not specified

As relevant to this PEP topic: 60% (3 of 5) studies that examined anxiety supported decreased general anxiety among patients who participated in yoga therapy. The other two large studies also showed less anxiety in this population, although it was divided into state and trait anxiety. A decrease in depression and depressive symptoms was reported in all of the studies reviewed that looked at psychosocial benefits related to yoga, which supports other meta-analyses stating that adding yoga therapy to traditional breast cancer treatment can decrease depression in these patients.

Evidence supports that yoga can have benefits on both physical and psychosocial quality of life in patients with breast cancer, including a decrease in both anxiety and depression. Additional research should aim to assess long-term effects of yoga in this population.

• Low sample sizes
• No meta-analysis, no table of evidence; difficult to synthesize all data accurately independently on article review

Yoga is an evidence-based intervention that may reduce anxiety and depression in patients with cancer. Recommending yoga to patients with breast cancer undergoing active treatment may be beneficial, particularly for those with high levels of anxiety and/or depression.