title: Selective impairment of attention networks in breast cancer patients receiving chemotherapy treatment.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Complaints about attention disorders are common among breast cancer survivors who have undergone chemotherapy treatment. However, it is not known whether these complaints indicate a global attention deficit or the selective impairment of attention networks.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  This study sought to investigate the attentional abilities of breast cancer patients after chemotherapy treatment using the attention network test (ANT).
  
  
  METHODS
  The participants included breast cancer patients who had undergone chemotherapy (CT, N = 58), patients who had not undergone chemotherapy (non-CT, N = 53), and matched healthy controls (HC, N = 55). All participants completed the ANT, which provides measures of three independent attention networks (alerting, orienting, and executive control) and neuropsychological background tests.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Our results indicated that the chemotherapy-treated breast cancer patients had significant deficits in the alerting and executive control networks but not in the orienting network. The CT group scored significantly lower in several cognitive tasks, including attention, memory, and information processing tasks, relative to the other two groups. Additionally, significant correlations were found between information processing and the efficiency of the executive control network within the CT group.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These results suggest that the three attention networks were selectively impaired following chemotherapy treatment, which affected different brain areas in the breast cancer survivors.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Neuropsychology, Department of Neurology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China.
authors.forename: Xingui
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Jingjing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ren
authors.forename: Xinglong
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.forename: Chunyan
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.forename: Yanghua
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Tian
authors.forename: Panpan
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.forename: Huijuan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.forename: Fengqiong
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.forename: Kai
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000971:Antineoplastic Combined Chemotherapy Protocols / Q000009:adverse effects; D001288:Attention / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000502:physiology; D001921:Brain / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000523:psychology* / Q000601:surgery; D003071:Cognition; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000139:chemically induced*; D056344:Executive Function; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008568:Memory; D008875:Middle Aged; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000503:physiopathology*; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011930:Reaction Time
keywords: adjuvant chemotherapy; attention network test; breast cancer; cognitive function; oncology