Cortical Brain Age from Pre-treatment to Post-chemotherapy in Patients with Breast Cancer

Chemotherapy-related cognitive impairment and associated brain changes may reflect accelerated brain aging; however, empirical evidence for this theory is limited. The purpose of this study was to measure brain aging in newly diagnosed patients with breast cancer treated with chemotherapy ( n = 43) and compare its longitudinal change to that of controls ( n = 50). Brain age indices, derived from cortical measures, were compared between women with breast cancer and matched healthy controls across 3 timepoints (time 1: pre-surgery, time 2: 1 month following chemotherapy completion, and time 3: 1-year post-chemotherapy). The breast cancer group showed a significant decrease in cortical thickness across the 3 timepoints ( p < .001) and a trend towards significant increase in predicted brain age especially from pre-treatment (time 1) to post-chemotherapy (time 2) compared to controls ( p = 0.08). Greater increase in predicted brain age was related to several clinical factors (HER-2 status, surgery type, and history of neoadjuvant chemotherapy) and greater decrease in cortical thickness was associated with greater decrease in performance on a verbal learning task from time 1 to time 3 ( r = − 0.48, p < .01). This study demonstrated evidence of increased cortical brain aging in middle-aged patients with breast cancer following chemotherapy treatment that was associated with decreased verbal memory performance.