The association between cognitive functioning and health-related quality of life in low-grade glioma patients.

Background: Glioma patients are not only confronted with the diagnosis and treatment of a brain tumor, but also with changes in cognitive and neurological functioning that can profoundly affect their daily lives. At present, little is known about the relationship between cognitive functioning and health-related quality of life (HRQOL) during the disease trajectory. We studied this association in low-grade glioma (LGG) patients with stable disease at an average of 6 years after diagnosis.

Methods: Patients and healthy controls underwent neuropsychological testing and completed self-report measures of generic (MOS SF36) and disease-specific (EORTC BN20) HRQOL. Associations were determined with Pearson correlations, and corrections for multiple testing were made.

Results: We analyzed data gathered from 190 LGG patients. Performance in all cognitive domains was positively associated with physical health (SF36 Physical Component Summary). Executive functioning, processing speed, working memory, and information processing were positively associated with mental health (SF36 Mental Component Summary). We found negative associations between a wide range of cognitive domains and disease-specific HRQOL scales.

Conclusions: In stable LGG patients, poorer cognitive functioning is related to lower generic and disease-specific HRQOL. This confirms that cognitive assessment of LGG patients should not be done in isolation from assessment of its impact on HRQOL, both in clinical and in research settings.