A - 71 Cognitive Complaints and Neuropsychological Performance in Cancer: the Role of Affect.

Abstract

To examine the impact of cancer treatments in affect and in cognition. The study evaluated 115 breast cancer patients before- and 6months after-treatment, and a group of 90 cognitively healthy subjects paired for age and education at matched intervals. All participants performed a comprehensive assessment with measures of affect (HADS and PANAS), subjective complaints (FACT-Cog), and a battery of neuropsychological tests comprising memory, attention, and executive functioning domains. Comparisons were done between-groups pre-treatment, and within-groups between timepoints. Correlations between psychological and cognitive measures were made at 6months. Before treatment, patients exhibited significant lower levels of positive affect (PANAS, p = 0.003), but no complaints or cognitive impairment, when compared to controls. Longitudinal analyses revealed an effect of time, towards improvement, in HADS anxiety (p = 0.0006) and PANAS negative (p < 0.0001), in the clinical group, and a small but significant increase in subjective complaints for both groups (p < 0.001). No objective cognitive decline was found in any group across time. A pattern of significant negative correlations between HADS measures and subjective cognitive assessment was found in the two groups, suggesting that higher affective symptoms are related to more cognitive complaints. No correlations were found between affect and neuropsychological performance, or between subjective and objective cognitive assessments, in any group. Our data showed that there is a discrepancy between cognitive complaints and objective scores due to the presence of affective symptoms in breast cancer patients. Importantly, the similar pattern in matched controls assessed in the same timepoints shows that it is not attributable to cancer treatments.