Trajectories of Cortical Atrophy Differ According to Cognitive Phenotype in Adults With Primary Brain Tumors.

Purpose: This study investigated patterns of cortical atrophy longitudinally in a prospective cohort of well-characterized patients with primary brain tumors before radiation therapy (RT) and at discrete time points up to 1-year post-RT. Patients with more impaired profiles were hypothesized to show greater and more widespread atrophy post-RT than patients with minimally impaired profiles.

Methods And Materials: Adults (aged 20-72 years) with primary brain tumors were enrolled in a prospective, observational study examining the effects of fractionated, partial brain RT on brain structure and cognition (n = 85).

Neuroanatomical profiles of cognitive phenotypes in patients with primary brain tumors.

Background: Patients with brain tumors demonstrate heterogeneous patterns of cognitive impairment, likely related to multifactorial etiologies and variable tumor-specific factors. Cognitive phenotyping offers a patient-centered approach to parsing heterogeneity by classifying individuals based on patterns of impairment. The aim of this study was to investigate the neuroanatomical patterns associated with each phenotype to gain a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying impairments.