391P Cognitive impairment in primary brain tumour patients receiving systemic therapy: A cross-sectional study

Systemic treatment of brain tumors is a complex issue. The cognitive decline of patients undergoing treatment is an additional liability apart from the disease burden and adverse effects of systemic therapy. Little literature concerning this made us do this cross-sectional analysis of patients receiving systemic therapy for the cognitive assessment. Adult patients undergoing systemic therapy at the outpatient department of neuro-medical oncology of our institute were selected for this study. These patients were administered the FACT-Cog quality of life (QOL) questionnaire. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS version 20. Multiple linear regression analysis was conducted to determine the best linear combinations of age, gender, education and affected lobe for predicting different cognitive QOL scores. Total 100 patients with a median age of 39 (18-64) years were taken up for the study. Out of them, 68 were males and 32 were females. The median scores calculated for perceived cognitive impairment, the impact of perceived cognitive impairment on quality of life, comments from others and perceived cognitive abilities, were 69 (IQR; 59.25 - 72), 14.5 (IQR; 7.25 - 16), 16 (IQR; 13 - 16) and 24 (IQR; 18 - 28) respectively. The association between various FACT-Cog subscales and the factors [elderly (age >60 years), gender, education, affected lobe (frontal, temporal, parietal and others)] were non-significant. Cognitive decline is a complex issue in brain tumor patients. None of the factors evaluated could reliably predict cognitive decline and hence cognitive QOL should be done in each patient.