A single-center retrospective review of the impact of cryotherapy on peripheral neuropathy scores in patients with breast cancer who received chemotherapy with a taxane-based treatment regimen.

e24106 Background: Taxanes are a class of chemotherapy frequently used for neoadjuvant and adjuvant treatment of breast cancer. While effective, taxane use is not without adverse effects, the most well-known being chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN). As CIPN is dose-related, it can lead to dose reductions and interruptions in therapy that may be detrimental to the patient. Cryotherapy has been used as a prevention strategy, but its efficacy remains unclear. Methods: We performed a retrospective review of the cryotherapy program in our center. Included patients had breast cancer of any stage treated with a taxane in the neoadjuvant or adjuvant setting. All patients were offered cryotherapy at the time of their treatment and were separated into cohorts whether they opted in or out (“cryotherapy” and “non cryotherapy,” respectively). Neuropathy scores were collected by nursing staff via survey and scaled from 0-4. Patient demographics and neuropathy scoring were compared between the “cryotherapy” and “non cryotherapy” cohorts. Results: In total, 41 patients were included. Nearly half of patients in each cohort experienced neuropathy, 10 patients (41.7%) treated with cryotherapy and 8 patients (47.1%) without cryotherapy use. Younger age (46.5 years vs 57 years, p = 0.060), and patients using Medicaid (35.3% vs 75.0%, when compared to all other insurance types, p = 0.023) predicted cryotherapy use. Use of paclitaxel also predicted cryotherapy used when compared to docetaxel (76.0% and 31.2%, respectively, p = 0.009). There was not a significant difference in predicted neuropathy score between the cohorts (Adjusted Multiplicative Effect = .81, 95% CI = .34-1.96, p = .645). Conclusions: Our data did not suggest that the use of cryotherapy could predict lower neuropathy scores, but our study suffered from small sample size and short-duration of follow-up. Additional large, randomized trials with standard neuropathy scoring scales are needed to better evaluate the efficacy of cryotherapy in prevention of CIPN for breast cancer patients receiving taxane-based therapy.