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This large comparative effectiveness trial, known as the Mindfulness and Tai Chi for Cancer Health study, investigated whether Mindfulness-Based Cancer Recovery and Tai Chi/Qigong could help cancer survivors manage three common and distressing symptoms: poor sleep, fatigue, and pain. The study involved 587 participants with an average age of 60.7 years who had experienced various types and stages of cancer. A particularly innovative feature of the trial was that participants could either choose their preferred intervention or agree to be randomly assigned to one, allowing researchers to assess whether personal preference influenced the outcomes.
Both interventions were compared against a waitlist control group. The results showed that both Mindfulness-Based Cancer Recovery and Tai Chi/Qigong produced statistically significant reductions in fatigue, with mean improvements of 3.66 and 3.42 points respectively. Both interventions also reduced pain interference by more than one point. Tai Chi/Qigong additionally improved sleep quality by an average of 1.9 points, a benefit that remained significant even after adjusting for age, sex, cancer stage, and participant preference. Importantly, neither intervention outperformed the other, and participant preference did not affect how well either treatment worked. The researchers also noted that improvements in sleep, fatigue, and pain were moderately correlated with one another, suggesting these symptoms form an interconnected cluster.
Conclusion: Both Tai Chi/Qigong and Mindfulness-Based Cancer Recovery meaningfully reduced fatigue and pain in distressed cancer survivors, with Tai Chi/Qigong offering the additional benefit of improved sleep quality.
Source: Ma Y, Carlson LE, Jones JM and colleagues. Journal of clinical oncology : official journal of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (2026). View on PubMed (PMID 42748380) · doi:10.1200/JCO-25-01967
