Postural control characteristics of breast cancer (BC) survivors with chronic chemotherapy-induced neuropathy (CIN)

Research Objectives: To characterize neuromotor deficits associated with chronic CIN.

Design: Cross-sectional

Setting: Breast oncology practice within an academic medical center

Participants: BC survivors >40 years of age with chronic CIN, defined as persisting more than 3 months after their last dose of taxane-based chemotherapy. Participants were identified as having neuropathy through chart review. Research staff worked with treating oncologists to invite their eligible patients to participate in this study and to enroll patients who were interested.

Interventions: none

Main Outcome Measures: Center-of-pressure (COP) based measures of postural control associated with falls risk and/or injury risk calculated per Prieto, et al. (1996) and Roerdink, et al. (2011).

Results: Sixty (60) survivors with CIN participated, ranging in age from 40 to 78 years old and from 3 months to 6 years post-chemotherapy end. Of this cohort, 52 (87%) demonstrated postural control outside of the normal range, as defined in Worthen-Chaudhari et al. (2018). Here we report descriptive statistics of the 52 survivors who demonstrated postural control dysfunction.

Conclusions: Among BC survivors over the age of 40, we found evidence that CIN can persist chronically up to 6 years after chemotherapy completion and can be associated with postural control dysfunction. Understanding the incidence and severity of motor control deficits associated with the sensory loss of CIN might be useful for clinical decision-making. In addition, postural control might be a viable target for interventional studies of CIN that seek to improve function as well as sensation. More research is warranted.

Author(s) Disclosures: This work was funded by R21-AG068831.
LWC stands to receive royalties from "Games That Move You".