Cognitive functioning of postmenopausal breast cancer patients before adjuvant systemic therapy, and its association with medical and psychological factors

Purpose: This study aimed to identify medical and psychological predictors for cognitive performance of breast cancer (BC) patients before the start of adjuvant systemic treatment and to compare cognitive performance between BC patients and healthy controls adjusting for medical and psychological variables. Material: 205 postmenopausal BC patients underwent pre-treatment neuropsychological tests and provided medical and psychological data. 124 healthy controls underwent the same assessment. Results: 'Treatment for diabetes mellitus' and/or 'hypertension', 'less hours spent on cognitively stimulating activities', 'fewer days since surgery' and 'more reproductive years' were associated with worse cognitive performance in the BC patients, independent of age and IQ. Cognitive differences between BC patients and healthy controls could partly be explained by the evaluated variables. Conclusion: The results stress the need for adjustment for pre-treatment cognitive differences between study groups, and also indicate that further research into pre-treatment cognitive dysfunction is warranted.

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