Cognitive Dysfunction in Non-CNS Metastatic Cancer: Comparing Brain Metastasis, Non-CNS Metastasis, and Healthy Controls

Abstract

Limited research has compared cognition of people with non-central nervous system metastatic cancer (NCM) vs. metastatic brain cancer (BM). This prospective cross-sectional study was comprised 37 healthy controls (HC), 40 NCM, and 61 BM completing 10 neuropsychological tests. The NCM performed below HCs on processing speed and executive functioning tasks, while the BM group demonstrated lower performance across tests. Tasks of processing speed, verbal fluency, and verbal memory differentiated the clinical groups (BM < NCM). Nearly 20% of the NCM group was impaired on at least three neuropsychological tests whereas approximately 40% of the BM group demonstrated the same level of impairment.

Keywords:

• Cognition
• neuropsychology
• metastases
• brain metastasis
• cancer

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the American Cancer Society [MRSG-14-204-01 to KT]; the National Institutes of Health/National Center for Advanced Translational Sciences [KL2 TR000166 to KT]; the National Cancer Institute [5R25CA076023]; and the University of Alabama at Birmingham Department of Neurology.