Cognitive function during neoadjuvant chemotherapy for breast cancer

Even before chemotherapy, a subgroup of patients with breast cancer showed cognitive compromise that was unrelated to anxiety or depression. During chemotherapy, cognitive function remained stable in most patients, improved in a subgroup, and deteriorated in another subgroup. The deterioration may have been caused by side effects of chemotherapy, but it also may have been related to currently unidentified factors that cause prechemotherapy cognitive compromise. Therapy-induced menopause and darbepoetin alpha did not appear to influence cognition.