Clinical trial · Observational
Chemotherapy Induced Cognitive Impairment
Inflammatory and Neural Correlates of Chemotherapy-Induced Cognitive Impairment: A Pilot Study
- Source
- ClinicalTrials.gov
- Retrieved
- Sep 8, 2026
- Layer
- normalized (units and labels harmonized; values unchanged)
- Run
- ING-CLINICALTRIALS-20260908-000001
Summary
Brief summary (as posted)
Chemotherapy is toxic and challenges everyone differently. Most chemotherapy side-effects are known and well documented. However, the phenomenon of "chemo fog" also known as "chemobrain" has not been fully investigated and is often based on comments of breast cancer patients attending outpatient clinics during and after their chemotherapy. Changes in thinking ability like lack of concentration, loss of memory and the inability to hold a thought or even a conversation has a significant impact on the lives of breast cancer patients. Without understanding what "chemobrain" is, and what causes it, there is little that doctors can do to help at the moment. The team proposing this study believe that chemotherapy causes chemicals associated with inflammation to attack parts of the brain that are important for concentration and making new memories. Unfortunately, it is not possible to measure these chemicals directly in the brain, but we believe that a brain scan sensitive to excess iron, a marker of brain inflammation, can help. This project will measure thinking ability, such as memory and concentration, take a blood sample and do a brain scan before, during and after a patient has chemotherapy. We will then look for changes in iron in the brain areas that are important for concentration and memory and compare those to changes in thinking ability and to levels of inflammation chemicals in the blood. This information will be essential to help plan our next step which is to test ways to reduce the effects of "chemobrain".
Conditions
Conditions (1)
Free-text conditions as registered, with the CancerIndex entity they were reconciled to and the match type.
| Condition (as posted) | Mapped entity | Match | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Breast Cancer | Malignant Breast Neoplasm | CURATED_EXACT | 0.92 |
Interventions
Interventions (1)
| Intervention | Type | Mapped drug | Match |
|---|---|---|---|
| No intervention | Other | — | UNRESOLVED |
Design
Arms and outcomes
Arms (1)
- label
- Patient
- description
- No intervention
- interventionNames
- Other: No intervention
Primary outcomes (1)
- measure
- Cognitive performance late post chemotherapy
- timeFrame
- 6 months
- description
- General intelligence will be determined with PCA from 5 separate tests to give 'g' general intelligence. 'g' is scaled to have a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15 giving an IQ-like measure of general intelligence.
Eligibility
Eligibility (as posted)
- Sex
- All
- Minimum age
- 18 Years
Show eligibility criteria text
Inclusion Criteria: * Women and men \>18 years * Diagnosed with HER2 negative breast cancer * Receiving EC-Taxane or Taxane only based chemotherapy * Able to communicate in English * Willing and able to give informed consent for participation in the study. Exclusion Criteria: * Any patient whose physical condition will preclude them from lying still for the duration of the brain scan. * pre-excisting mental condition/disability * Contraindication to magnetic resonance scanning such as an implantable cardiac device.
References
Publications (0)
Data not yet available