Pretreatment worry and neurocognitive responses in women with breast cancer.

Abstract

Worry appears to be a significant contributor to neurocognitive dysfunction independent of adjuvant treatment for breast cancer. These results suggest that alterations in cognitive function may develop before any chemotherapy treatment and that worry about cancer diagnosis may contribute to reports of "chemo brain" during treatment. Psychological interventions aimed at mitigating worry may help to alleviate cognitive dysfunction associated with life-threatening illness such as breast cancer.