Discussant Kathryn Schmitz, PhD, MPH, Professor of Epidemiology at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, lauded the researchers’ successful intervention in what can be a challenging setting.

“Dr. Yung presented evidence that it is feasible to conduct an evidence-based, 15-week clinical weight-loss intervention within the context of a busy oncology clinic,” said Dr. Schmitz. “Those in the audience who have tried to do weight-loss intervention in survivors know that this is not easy to do.”

“The next step,” Dr. Schmitz added, “should be incorporating effective exercise and dietary programs into survivorship care models…. To my knowledge, there has never been a randomized controlled trial that has evaluated the effectiveness of taking a known effective cancer survivorship care model and a known effective weight-loss intervention and combined them. That might be a really fun study to do.” ■

Disclosure: Dr. Schmitz reported no potential conflicts of interest.