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Neuropsychological functioning during chemotherapy with temozolomide in high-grade glioma patients: a retrospective single centre study

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Abstract

Purpose

starting from a lack of precise and coherent data in literature, aim of this work is to retrospectively study the influence of chemotherapy with Temozolomide (TMZ) on a wide series of neuropsychological functions in a population of adult high-grade glioma patients.

Methods

an extensive neuropsychological battery was administered pre-operatively (T0) and after 6 (T1) and 12 months (T2) from surgery. After full recovery from surgery, TMZ was delivered concomitant to radiotherapy and, subsequently, adjuvantly for 5-day cycles per month. Parametric and non-parametric analyses were conducted to verify the influence of several aspects of chemotherapy on the adjusted scores of each cognitive test at the two post-operative follow-ups.

Results

Sixty-one patients were included at T0; patients with a lower adjuvant TMZ dosage reported a better performance at the visual attention test at T1, and at the deductive reasoning test at T2. Undergoing more than 8 cycles of adjuvant therapy was slightly associated with a better performance at the long-term verbal memory tasks at T2. No other associations were found with the other cognitive tests and autonomy scales administered.

Conclusions

TMZ proved to be a secure treatment with no negative side effects on cognition and on level of daily autonomy, even at the highest dosage used. This is a positive finding which enables clinicians to reassure patients about the absence of significant negative effects of TMZ on their daily life functioning. In this view, eventual cognitive changes during treatment might not be attributed to chemotherapy but to other events such as tumour relapse.

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Data Availability

The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

The authors declare that no funds, grants, or other support were received during the preparation of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurosurgery, Fondazione IRCCS Ca’ Granda Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico, Milan, Italy

    Giorgia Abete-Fornara, Petra Bintintan Socaciu, Claudia Fanizzi, Giorgio Fiore, Marco Locatelli & Manuela Caroli

  2. Department of Pathophysiology and Transplantation, University of Milan, Milan, Italy

    Petra Bintintan Socaciu, Giorgio Fiore & Marco Locatelli

Authors
  1. Giorgia Abete-Fornara
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  2. Petra Bintintan Socaciu
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  3. Claudia Fanizzi
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  4. Giorgio Fiore
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  5. Marco Locatelli
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  6. Manuela Caroli
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by G.A.F. and P. B. S. The main manuscript was written by G.A.F. and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Giorgia Abete-Fornara.

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This is an observational restrospective study; our Research Ethics Committee has confirmed that no ethical approval is required.

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Abete-Fornara, G., Bintintan Socaciu, P., Fanizzi, C. et al. Neuropsychological functioning during chemotherapy with temozolomide in high-grade glioma patients: a retrospective single centre study. J Neurooncol 165, 561–568 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11060-023-04533-x

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