Objective: Cancer-related fatigue is defined as a persistent, subjective sense of tiredness related to cancer and cancer treatment that interferes with usual functioning. In addition to confirming...Show moreObjective: Cancer-related fatigue is defined as a persistent, subjective sense of tiredness related to cancer and cancer treatment that interferes with usual functioning. In addition to confirming the well-known presence of fatigue in patients with low-grade glioma (LGG), this study investigated whether patients suffered from cognitive impairment, and whether this cognitive impairment was related to the experienced fatigue. Method: Due to the exploratory nature of this study many outcome measures were investigated in order to map the possible factors related to experienced levels of fatigue. We therefore chose to perform descriptive statistical analyses. Fatigue and different subscales of fatigue (mental fatigue, physical fatigue, decreased motivation, decreased activity and general fatigue) were measured with the self-report Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory. In order to measure neuropsychological functioning all patients completed a battery of standardized neuropsychological tests selected to cover a broad range of cognitive functions, including attention and concentration, executive functioning, and memory. Mann-Whitney tests were used to compare severely fatigued patients to non-severely fatigued patients in order to analyse whether their performance on neuropsychological testing differed. In addition, we also examined whether severely fatigued patients differed from non-severely fatigued patients in characteristics, time post diagnosis, tumor location and treatment. These analyses were only performed for mental and physical fatigue. Results: Thirty-one adult patients (mean age, 44 years; 21 males [68%]) with a confirmed LGG and a mean time post diagnosis of 2.5 years were included in this study. Severe mental fatigue prevalence rates were reported by 17/31 (55%) patients, whereas 9/31 (29%) patients reported severe physical fatigue. Sixteen percent of the patients reported both severe mental and physical fatigue. Cognitive impairments (t-score < 40) were predominantly observed in the domain of attention and concentration (21.9%), and to a lesser extent in the domains of memory (15.8%) and executive functioning (10.3%). Significant differences (p < .05) between severely mental fatigued patients and non-severely mental fatigued patients were found on 4/14 (29%) cognitive tests. Concerning the physical fatigued patients and non-severely physical fatigued patients, significant differences (p < .05) were found on 2/14 (14%) cognitive tests. Conclusion: Our data demonstrated that LGG patients showed high levels of experienced fatigue, especially in the domain of mental fatigue, when compared to healthy individuals, which might partially be explained by impairment in cognitive functions, which where predominantly observed in the domain of attention and concentration. Additional research is needed to identify what other factors might cause increased levels of experienced fatigue in patients with LGG.Show less
