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Many patients treated with chemotherapy for non-central nervous system (CNS) cancers experience cognitive dysfunction. However, few studies have investigated treatment-related neurotoxicity in women with ovarian cancer. The goal of this study was to assess regional brain function in patients with ovarian cancer after first-line chemotherapy. Seventeen patients with ovarian cancer and seventeen healthy controls matched for gender, age and education participated in the study. The patients were evaluated 1-4 months after completion of first line taxane/platinum chemotherapy. All participants underwent resting state functional MRI (rsfMRI) and regional homogeneity (ReHo) indices were calculated. The results showed that patients had significantly decreased average ReHo values in the left middle frontal gyrus, medial prefrontal cortex, and right superior parietal lobule, compared to healthy controls. This is the first rsfMRI study showing ReHo alterations in frontal and parietal regions in patients with ovarian cancer treated with first-line chemotherapy. The findings are overall congruent with prior studies in non-CNS cancer populations and provide supporting evidence for the prevailing notion that frontal areas are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of chemotherapy., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

Women with ovarian cancer often undergo chemotherapy involving multiple agents. However, little is known about treatment-related central neurotoxicity in this population. The goal of this cross-sectional study was to assess brain structure and function and neurocognitive abilities in patients with ovarian cancer following first-line chemotherapy. Eighteen patients with ovarian, peritoneal and fallopian tube cancer and eighteen healthy controls matched for gender, age and education participated in the study. The patients were evaluated 1-4 months following completion of first-line taxane/platinum chemotherapy. All participants underwent structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and completed neuropsychological tests of attention, memory and executive functions. Neuroimaging assessments included voxel-based morphometry (VBM) for measuring gray matter (GM) volume, and functional MRI (fMRI) during the N-back working memory task. The results of VBM showed that patients had significantly reduced GM volume compared to healthy controls in the right middle/superior frontal gyrus, and in the left supramarginal gyrus and left inferior parietal lobule. fMRI results indicated significantly decreased activation in patients relative to healthy controls in the left middle frontal gyrus and left inferior parietal lobule during the N-back task (1/2/3-back >0-back). There were no statistically significant differences between the two groups on the neuropsychological tests. This is the first study showing structural and functional alterations involving frontal and parietal regions in patients with ovarian cancer treated with first-line chemotherapy. These findings are congruent with studies involving women with breast cancer, and provide additional supporting evidence for central neurotoxicity associated with taxane/platinum chemotherapy.

Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) is often used in the treatment of hematologic disorders. Although it can be curative, the pre-transplant conditioning regimen can be associated with neurotoxicity. In this prospective study, we examined white matter (WM) integrity with diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and neuropsychological functioning before and one year after HSCT in twenty-two patients with hematologic disorders and ten healthy controls evaluated at similar intervals. Eighteen patients received conditioning treatment with high-dose (HD) chemotherapy, and four had full dose total body irradiation (fTBI) and HD chemotherapy prior to undergoing an allogeneic or autologous HSCT. The results showed a significant decrease in mean diffusivity (MD) and axial diffusivity (AD) in diffuse WM regions one year after HSCT (p-corrected <0.05) in the patient group compared to healthy controls. At baseline, patients treated with allogeneic HSCT had higher MD and AD in the left hemisphere WM than autologous HSCT patients (p-corrected <0.05). One year post-transplant, patients treated with allogeneic HSCT had lower fractional anisotropy (FA) and higher radial diffusivity (RD) in the right hemisphere and left frontal WM compared to patients treated with autologous HSCT (p-corrected <0.05).There were modest but significant correlations between MD values and cognitive test scores, and these were greatest for timed tests and in projection tracts. Patients showed a trend toward a decline in working memory, and had lower cognitive test scores than healthy controls at the one-year assessment. The findings suggest a relatively diffuse pattern of alterations in WM integrity in adult survivors of HSCT.

Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) is an efficacious treatment for many hematologic malignancies. However, the conditioning regimen of high-dose (HD) chemotherapy with or without total body irradiation (TBI) can be associated with neurotoxicity. In this prospective study, we used quantitative neuroimaging techniques to examine regional gray matter and ventricular volumes, and standardized neuropsychological tests to assess cognitive function before and 1 year after HSCT in 28 patients with hematologic malignancies and in ten healthy controls evaluated at similar intervals. Nineteen patients received conditioning treatment with HD chemotherapy alone and nine had both TBI and HD chemotherapy. There was a significant reduction in gray matter volume in the middle frontal gyrus bilaterally and in the left caudate nucleus in the patient group (all patients combined) but not among healthy controls over the 1-year follow-up period. There was a significant increase in left lateral ventricle volume and in total ventricle volume in the patient group, relative to healthy controls. Similar brain structural changes were seen for patients treated with HD chemotherapy alone. The neuropsychological results showed that 21% of patients could be classified as impaired at baseline. The Reliable Change Index suggested no significantly different rates of cognitive decline between patients and healthy controls. The findings suggest that HSCT patients may be at an increased risk for developing regional brain volume loss, and that subgroups may experience cognitive dysfunction prior to and 1 year following the transplant.