ABSTRACT
Cognitive dysfunction is common in many cancer patients and can be related to the disease and to treatment with chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy (RT). This chapter reviews studies involving patients with brain tumors and breast cancer, considering that most of the research has been conducted in these patient groups. There has been an increase in the number of studies and clinical trials that incorporate standardized cognitive outcome measures for the assessment of patients with cancer of the central nervous system (CNS). Beyond the effects of primary CNS cancers on cognition, non-CNS cancer diagnosis and treatment has also been found to be associated with cognitive dysfunction. In non-CNS cancers, the body of literature on self-reported cognitive dysfunction, cross-sectional and longitudinal objective cognitive assessments before and after treatment, and structural and functional imaging findings strongly support the occurrence of neuropsychological dysfunction associated with diagnosis and treatment for breast cancer.
