Cognitive awareness after treatment for high-grade glioma

In patients with brain lesion, awareness of cognitive deficits is an important aspect of disease awareness. Glioblastoma (GBM) and anaplastic astrocytoma (AA) can cause cognitive deficits, but, to date, awareness of these deficits has not been documented. This study aimed to test cognitive awareness in these patients after the end of treatment.

Fifty patients with GBM or AA were assessed using the Multiple Ability Self-Report Questionnaire (MASQ), State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), Self Rating Depression Scale (SRDS), and memory, attention, mental speed, abstract reasoning, and flexibility neuropsychological tests. Cognitive awareness was calculated as the concordance between the composite score of neuropsychological performance (PEC) and the total MASQ score. The controls were 48 healthy subjects. Analysis of variance and regression analysis compared subject groups and explored variables predicting perceived abilities.

Patients with GBM or AA showed similar attention, memory, and executive deficits compared with controls. Cognitive awareness was fair/full in 64% of patients. In the entire patients group, the worst MASQ scores were associated with neuropsychological deficits, anxiety, depression, and glioma location in the right hemisphere . In patients with fair/full awareness, MASQ scores were related to affective status and neuropsychological performance, whereas, in those with scarce/no awareness, they were related only to affective status.

After treatment, many patients with GBM or AA are aware of their cognitive deficits. Anxiety, depression, and right hemisphere tumour exacerbate the perceived difficulties. This neurocognitive approach expands the behavioural phenotypes of high-grade gliomas and may have therapeutic implications over the course of the disease.