title: Could yoga practice improve treatment-related side effects and quality of life for women with breast cancer? A systematic review and meta-analysis.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To determine if yoga as a complementary and alternative therapy was associated with enhanced health and treatment-related side effects in patients with breast cancer. This systematic review examines whether yoga practice provides any measurable benefit, both physically and psychologically, for women with breast cancer.
  
  
  METHODS
  PubMed, EMBASE and the Cochrane Library for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) throughout June 2013. We evaluated the quality of the included studies by the Cochrane Handbook 5.2 standards and analyzed the data using the Stata software, version 10.0. Meta-regression and subgroup analysis were also performed to identify additional predictors of outcome and to assess heterogeneity.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Sixteen RCTs with a total of 930 participants were included. Comparing yoga groups to control groups, there was a statistically significant difference in overall health-related quality of life, depression, anxiety and gastrointestinal symptoms. Meta-regression analyses revealed that the duration of yoga practice and type of control group partly explained the heterogeneity. Subgroup analyses revealed that yoga had a positive effect on anxiety only when it had been practiced for longer than 3 months. Only the wait-list control group showed an effect of yoga on physical well-being.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The current evidence demonstrates that yoga practice could be effective in enhancing health and managing some treatment-related side effects for patients recovering from breast cancer. In future clinical studies, clinicians should consider the patient's wishes along with the current best evidence of the effects of yoga practice in their clinical decision-making.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Psychology, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, Gansu, China.
authors.forename: Yuanqing
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Pan
authors.affiliation: Evidence-Based Medicine Center, Key Laboratory of Clinical Translational Research and Evidence-Based Medicine of Gansu Province, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, Gansu, China.
authors.forename: Kehu
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, the 2nd Hospital of Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, Gansu, China.
authors.forename: Yuliang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Longdong University, Qingyang, Gansu, China.
authors.forename: Laiping
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, the Affiliated Hospital of Logistics University of CAPF, Tianjin, China.
authors.forename: Haiqing
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Liang
mesh_terms: D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000523:psychology / Q000534:rehabilitation / Q000628:therapy*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D011788:Quality of Life; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic; D015013:Yoga
keywords: breast cancer; complementary and alternative medicine; meta-analysis; treatment-related side effect; yoga