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REVIEW ARTICLE

Exercise and fear of cancer recurrence: Behavioral, psychoneuroimmune, and digital-intervention perspectives

Pengyu Ji1 Yuqing Xiao1 Jianda Kong2*
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1 College of Physical Education and Health, Hebei Normal University of Science and Technology, Qinhuangdao, Hebei, China
2 College of Physical Education, Hebei Normal University, Shijiazhuang, Hebei, China
Received: 19 April 2026 | Revised: 11 July 2026 | Accepted: 14 July 2026 | Published online: 3 August 2026
© 2026 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract

Fear of cancer recurrence (FCR) represents one of the most frequent and clinically meaningful psychological problems among individuals living with and beyond cancer. Rather than reflecting a simple emotional reaction, FCR is increasingly recognized as a complex biobehavioral condition shaped by symptom perception, maladaptive cognitive processing, behavioral avoidance, chronic stress responses, and wider survivorship challenges. Cognitive-behavioral, mindfulness-informed, and psychoeducational interventions remain the best-established strategies for FCR management. Exercise should therefore be understood not as an independently proven cure for FCR, but as a potentially useful adjunctive strategy that may target several behavioral and physiological processes involved in recurrence-related fear. This narrative review synthesizes current evidence and theoretical pathways regarding the role of exercise in FCR management from behavioral, psychoneuroimmune, and digital-delivery perspectives. At the behavioral level, exercise may reduce vulnerability to FCR by improving self-efficacy, restoring perceived control, improving sleep and fatigue, reducing catastrophic interpretation of bodily sensations, and promoting behavioral activation and social connection. From a psychoneuroimmune perspective, FCR may be associated with chronic threat vigilance, autonomic imbalance, stress-related neuroendocrine dysregulation, and inflammation-related symptom clusters; however, these pathways remain partly inferential, and few clinical trials have simultaneously measured FCR outcomes and biological biomarkers in exercise interventions. Digital health platforms, smartphone-based programs, wearable devices, telecoaching, and online exercise formats may increase scalability and long-term support, but they also raise issues of digital literacy, access, and equity. Overall, exercise is best positioned as an adjunct component of stepped-care, multimodal, and technology-supported FCR-targeted survivorship care. Further randomized trials with FCR as a primary endpoint and embedded mechanistic assessments are required.

Keywords
Fear of cancer recurrence
Cancer survivorship
Exercise
Physical activity
Psychoneuroimmunology
Funding
None.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest related to this work.
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Cancer Plus, Electronic ISSN: 2661-3840 Print ISSN: 2661-3832, Published by AccScience Publishing