Abstract
BackgroundBreast cancer (BC) is the most frequent cancer in women with more than 70% of BC patients being treated with hormonal therapy (HT). Among these patients, some report difficulties in remembering what they are supposed to do at the right moment, referring to prospective memory (PM). PM is essential for autonomy and medical adherence of patients, and requires an ecological assessment. Virtual reality, that recreates naturalistic environment, seems to be a promising method to evaluate PM. Several BC patients also report sleep disturbances. Given the role of sleep on memory consolidation, it is imperative to explore the influence of sleep quality on PM in BC patients treated with HT.The purpose of PROSOM-K study is to assess PM functioning using virtual reality and sleep quality in BC treated or not with HT.MethodsPROSOM-K is a prospective study including post-menopausal BC patients ≤70 years old treated with radiotherapy (n = 25) or with radiotherapy and HT (n = 25), and healthy post-menopausal women (n = 25) matched for age and education. PM will be assessed using a virtual reality based task. Other cognitive functions and psychosocial factors will be assessed with validated questionnaires and neuropsychological tests. The study is divided in 3 sessions: a session of familiarisation with the virtual environment and the PM task: a day-time session during which participants learn intentions during the morning and recall them in the evening; and a night-time session during which participants learn intentions in the evening and recall them the following morning. Women will be monitored by wrist actigraphy; during the night-time session, objective sleep quality and quantity will be measured by polysomnography.DiscussionThis is a novel study aiming to assess PM using virtual reality, coupled with the evaluation of other cognitive functions. Polysomnographic study of sleep will provide further information about architectural sleep disturbances in BC. Association between sleep architecture parameters and PM mechanism in BC women treated with HT will be described in detail. We expect our results will provide knowledge for patients and clinicians and further help to improve patient care and cognitive therapy.Trial registrationNCT03420105, registered: January 10, 2018.
Highlights
Breast cancer (BC) is the most frequent cancer in women with more than 70% of BC patients being treated with hormonal therapy (HT)
The majority of studies assessing impact of treatment on BC patients have focused on chemotherapy, while up to 70% of BC patients are treated with hormonal therapy (HT) [21]
Clarify the influence of sleep disturbances in BC on prospective memory (PM) deficits, using various sleep quality assessments, and by comparing PM scores in two different conditions, depending on the type of delay between encoding and retrieval of intentions: daytime and night-time assess the influence of HT on PM functioning by comparing PM scores between BC patients treated with HT and BC patients not treated with HT
Summary
Breast cancer (BC) is the most frequent cancer in women with more than 70% of BC patients being treated with hormonal therapy (HT) Among these patients, some report difficulties in remembering what they are supposed to do at the right moment, referring to prospective memory (PM). Breast cancer (BC) is the most frequent cancer in women and its incidence is increasing [1] Among these patients, some of them experience cognitive troubles and especially difficulties remembering what there are supposed to do at the right time or in the right place [2, 3]. Working memory is required to keep the intention in mind between the recall and the realisation of the action, and the binding process induces a link between prospective and retrospective components creating a unitary representation of the intention in working memory [6]. PM is essential for daily living tasks and, in BC patients, PM is even more essential for medical adherence, autonomy, and return to social and professional life
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