AIMS: To investigate the effect of Self-designed Metabolic Equivalent Exercises (SMEE) on cancer-related fatigue in patients with gastric cancer. METHODS: 130 patients with gastric cancer admitted to Department of Oncology of a tertiary hospital in Shanghai were enrolled and assessed for eligibility. After excluding 1 patient who declined to participate, 129 eligible patients were randomly assigned into SMEE (n = 65) and control (n = 64) groups. The Revised Piper Fatigue Scale (RPFS) and EORTC QLQ-C30 Quality of Life Scale were used to measure cancer-caused fatigue and quality of life, respectively, in both groups at the first admission and after 3 months. RESULTS: After excluding patients who did not receive allocated intervention due to medical (n = 3) and personal (n = 2) reasons, those who were lost to follow-up (n = 3), and those who had discontinued intervention (n = 2), 119 patients (64 in the SMEE group and 55 in the control group) were included for analysis. There were no statistically significant differences in the RPFS or QLQ-C30 score between the two groups at baseline. After 3 months, the total RPFS score of the SMEE group was significantly lower than that of the control group (2.86 +/- 1.75 versus 4.65 +/- 1.29, p = 0.009), with significant improvements in affective meaning (0.83 +/- 0.92 versus 1.13 +/- 0.77, p = 0.044) and sensory (0.70 +/- 0.71 versus 1.00 +/- 0.54, p < 0.001) subscales; in the SMEE group, QLQ-C30 scores in somatic (2.00 +/- 0.27 versus 1.31 +/- 0.26, p < 0.001), emotional (2.67 +/- 0.58 versus 2.07 +/- 0.48, p < 0.001), and social (3.23 +/- 0.58 versus 1.64 +/- 0.51, p < 0.001) functioning were significantly higher than those in the control group, with significant improvements in fatigue (p < 0.001), nausea/vomiting (p = 0.014), shortness of breath (p < 0.001), constipation (p < 0.001), and diarrhea (p = 0.001) dimensions. CONCLUSION: The self-programmed metabolic equivalent manipulation as an exercise intervention could effectively reduce the degrees of cancer-caused fatigue and improve quality of life in patients with gastric cancer.

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