Structural and functional brain magnetic resonance imaging findings of chemothera

描述（由申请人提供）：乳腺癌是美国女性中诊断的主要癌症，也是癌症死亡的第二大原因。辅助化疗已被证明可以降低乳腺癌复发和死亡的风险。然而，老年人化疗毒性的风险增加，包括治疗相关死亡的风险增加。目前，关于乳腺癌患者的哪些脑结构和功能受到化疗和毒性的影响，只有初步的证据。然而，这项先前的研究并没有专门研究老年妇女。因此，需要建立一种具有可重复生物标志物的更灵敏的测试，以鉴定具有较高化疗毒性风险的老年乳腺癌患者。我们的长期目标是鉴定与老年癌症患者化疗毒性相关的高度灵敏和可重复的脑MRI生物标志物。为了实现这一目标，本研究的目的是定义脑MRI上发生的变化，并确定脑MRI变化与老年乳腺癌患者化疗毒性之间的关系。我们的目标是：1）定义接受辅助化疗的老年乳腺癌女性患者脑MRI上发生的结构和功能变化; 2）确定脑MRI上结构和功能变化的严重程度与化疗毒性之间的关系。我们预计，我们的患者大脑MRI的结构和功能变化的严重程度将 与化疗毒性的严重程度相关。这项拟议中的研究意义重大，因为它关注的是老年乳腺癌妇女脑MRI变化与化疗毒性之间的未知关系。它具有创新性，因为它提出了先进的MRI技术来研究和识别老年人化疗毒性的新的潜在生物标志物， 乳腺癌它将通过帮助澄清化疗毒性引起的认知能力下降的潜在病理生理学而产生积极的影响。这项初步研究产生的数据也将有助于为未来老年人认知和化疗的大规模研究奠定基础。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Breast cancer is the leading cancer diagnosed among woman in the US and is the second leading cause of cancer deaths. Adjuvant chemotherapy has been proven to decrease the risks of relapse and mortality from breast cancer. However, older adults are at increased risk for chemotherapy toxicity, including an increased risk of treatment-related mortality. At present, there is only preliminary evidence regarding which brain structures and functions are affected by chemotherapy and toxicity in breast cancer patients. However, this prior research did not specifically study older women. Thus, there is a need to establish a more sensitive test that has reproducible biomarkers, to identify the older breast cancer patients who are at higher risk for chemotherapy toxicity Our long term goal is to identify highly sensitive and reproducible brain MRI biomarkers that are associated with chemotherapy toxicity in aging cancer patients. Toward that goal, the objective of this study is to define the changes that occur on brain MRI and to determine the relationship between brain MRI changes and chemotherapy toxicity in older adults with breast cancer. We aim to 1) define structural and functional changes that occur on brain MRI of older women with breast cancer receiving adjuvant chemotherapy and; 2) determine the relationship between the severity of structural and functional changes on brain MRI and chemotherapy toxicity. We expect that the severity of structural and functional changes to the brain MRI in our patients will correlate with the severity of chemotherapy toxicity. The proposed study is significant because it focuses on the unknown relationship between brain MRI changes and chemotherapy toxicity in older women with breast cancer. It is innovative because it proposes advanced MRI techniques to study and identify the novel potential biomarkers for chemotherapy toxicity in older adults with breast cancer. It will have a positive impact by helping to clarify the underlying pathophysiology of cognitive decline caused by chemotherapy toxicity. The data generated from this pilot study will also help to serve as a foundation for future large scale studies of cognition and chemotherapy in older adults.