Grantee: Stacey Kenfield, Sc.D.

Stacey Kenfield

Stacey Kenfield, Sc.D.

Cancer Epidemiology Researcher
BRP FEATURED GRANTEE
Organization:
  • University of California - San Francisco

The focus of Dr. Kenfield's research is to study how nutritional and lifestyle factors relate to cancer incidence and progression, to identify opportunities for prevention and improved survival for the 14 million people worldwide each year who are diagnosed with cancer. She became interested in cancer survivorship issues while leading the Harvard-based Health Professionals Follow-Up Study prostate cancer clinical and quality of life follow-up of more than 7,500 men with prostate cancer, a role she assumed in 2005. Her overarching goal is to develop evidence-based, tailored lifestyle guidelines and tools for patients with cancer to improve quality of life, cancer prognosis, and overall health. Highlights of her previous work include being the first to publish on the benefit of vigorous physical activity after diagnosis in men with prostate cancer, reporting a substantial (greater than 60%) reduction in risk of prostate cancer mortality at levels of 3 or more hours per week of vigorous activity vs. < 1 hour per week. She also recently developed a healthy lifestyle score for reducing lethal prostate cancer; men with 5-6 vs. <= 1 healthy behaviors had a 68% reduced risk of lethal prostate cancer. Dr. Kenfield is leading a pilot digital lifestyle intervention targeting 8 behavioral factors vs. usual care with a custom patient portal, Fitbit, and text messaging to evaluate feasibility, acceptance, and usability, and change in behaviors associated with prostate cancer progression. She is also PI or co-PI of several home-based and supervised exercise randomized clinical trials (RCTs) for men with prostate cancer and colorectal cancer at UCSF and is directing the study coordination center for INTense Exercise foR surVivAL among Men with Metastatic Castrate-Resistant Prostate Cancer (INTERVAL), aka Global Action Plan 4 (GAP4), a 2-arm global RCT evaluating the effects of psychosocial support +/- supervised aerobic and resistance exercise, on overall survival, progression-free survival, symptomatic skeletal-related events, pain, opiate use, cancer-related fatigue, and quality of life, funded by Movember. It is the first RCT to examine exercise and survival in men with prostate cancer. To date, INTERVAL will enroll at 20 sites, in 7 countries, and in 4 languages.

Her current R01 will build off of her initial pilot lifestyle RCT and investigate the effects of a digital intervention targeting exercise vs. exercise + diet vs. usual care on biological and clinical outcomes in men undergoing surgery for prostate cancer and follow them 2 years post-surgery. The study will provide critical translational data on the effect of a sustainable digital intervention as adjuvant therapy for prostate cancer.


A cancer diagnosis is a teachable moment when individuals are motivated to change behavior to reduce risk of adverse health outcomes. This has led me to focus my research on elucidating the role of lifestyle factors in relation to patient-reported outcomes (e.g., quality of life, treatment side effects) and clinical outcomes (e.g., recurrence, mortality) in adults with cancer to improve quality of life, cancer prognosis, and overall health.”



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