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Cognitive impairment in women newly diagnosed with thyroid cancer before treatment

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Abstract

Purpose

The study aims to assess cognitive function in women newly diagnosed with non-metastatic thyroid cancer before any treatment and to identify factors associated with cognitive problems.

Methods

Korean women newly diagnosed with thyroid cancer awaiting initial surgical treatment (n = 130) completed neuropsychological tests and self-report questionnaires on symptom distress and psychological distress. Additionally, information on thyroid function was obtained through a medical chart audit. Descriptive statistics and multivariable regression analyses were performed to describe the incidence of cognitive problems and to identify possible predictors of neuropsychological performance.

Results

Approximately 95% of women newly diagnosed with thyroid cancer had impaired neuropsychological test scores on one or more tests of attention and cognitive control. Further analyses found that 78% of women met both the Global Deficit Score and the International Cancer and Cognition Task Force criteria for impairment. Finally, regression analyses found that older age, fewer years of education, greater depressed mood, and having a hypothyroid state but not having a comorbid condition, fatigue, sleep problems, symptom burden, or symptom interference were associated with worse neuropsychological test performance in this sample. Additional explorative regression analysis using mean T-scores corrected for age, education, and gender continued to find that hypothyroid state was associated with worse neuropsychological test performance.

Conclusions

Findings suggest that individuals newly diagnosed with non-metastatic thyroid cancer are vulnerable to cognitive deficits at diagnosis before any treatment. As such, healthcare workers should assess individuals newly diagnosed with thyroid cancer diagnosis awaiting treatment for the disease for cognitive deficits and intervene to reduce symptom distress and optimize function.

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Data availability

The data sets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are available for the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Code availability

Not applicable.

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Acknowledgements

We are appreciative of the study participants and research teams who made this research possible.

Funding

The study was supported by a grant of the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Korea government (Grant number: 2021R1A2C209341611).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Nursing, Chungnam National University, Daejeon, South Korea

    Mi Sook Jung, Mijung Kim, Kyengin Cha, Nondumiso Dlamini & Xirong Cui

  2. School of Nursing Eastern, Michigan University, 318T Porter Building, Ypsilanti, MI, 48197, USA

    Moira Visovatti

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  1. Mi Sook Jung
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Contributions

All authors contributed to study conception and design. Material preparation and data collection were performed by Mi Sook Jung, Mijung Kim, Kyengin Cha, Nondumiso Dlamini, and Xirong Cui. Data analysis and interpretation were performed by Mi Sook Jung and Moira Visovatti. All authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Moira Visovatti.

Ethics declarations

Ethics approval

This study was performed in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Approval was granted by the Ethic Committee of Chungnam National University Hospital (2–1046881-A-N-01–201611-HR-044).

Consent to participate

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in this study.

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Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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Jung, M.S., Visovatti, M., Kim, M. et al. Cognitive impairment in women newly diagnosed with thyroid cancer before treatment. Support Care Cancer 30, 8959–8967 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-022-07299-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-022-07299-6

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