20 The Relationship Between Quality of Life, Cognitive Functioning, and Tumor Grade Level in Brain Tumor Patients

Abstract

Objective:

The goal of the current study is to compare QoL between tumor grade levels (i.e., low vs high) as well as the relationship between QoL, cognition, and tumor grade.

Participants and Methods:

Participants were 156 individuals diagnosed with a brain tumor who completed neuropsychological evaluation within an interdisciplinary brain tumor clinic (mean age=51.67; SD=15.0; mean education=13.98; SD=2.6; 59% male). Independent samples T-Test was utilized to review participants’ reported overall quality of life (QoL) on the FACT-Br in relation to tumor grade level (i.e., high vs low). Linear regression analysis was utilized to determine which cognitive variable may be most predictive of QoL.

Results:

Results of the Independent T-test demonstrated that low and high tumor grade level groups did not significantly differ in total or individual sub-domain QoL. With regard to the regression analysis, cognitive variables as measured by TMT B, HVLT delayed recall, and FAS accounted for significant variance in quality of life in both low grade and high grade tumor groups (low tumor grade level effect size R2 =0.21; high tumor grade level effect size R2 = 0.19). However, TMT B emerged as a significant predictor of QoL in only the low grade group, while cognitive performance within these same tasks did not significantly predict QoL for the high tumor grade level group.

Conclusions:

Our findings did not significantly differ in the overall impact tumor grade level (i.e., low vs., high) has on QoL. Notably, cognitive performance on TMT B significantly predicts QoL for the low but not high tumor grade level group.