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MP2PRT: Evaluation of an Inflammation Polygenic Risk Score (iPRS) to Predict Cancer Related Cognitive Impairment and Fatigue in Patients Receiving Chemotherapy for Non-Metastatic Breast Cancer in URCC0701 and URCC10055

This study is a secondary analysis of cancer related cognitive impairment (CRCI) and cancer related fatigue (CRF) among participants in URCC0701 and URCC10055 from the University of Rochester NCI Community Oncology Research Program (NCORP) Research Base. CRCI and CRF are common, troublesome, and dose-limiting toxicities reported by patients undergoing breast cancer chemotherapy that have an etiologic basis linked to low-grade systemic inflammation. Chronic, low-grade systemic inflammation is, in part, genetically determined with common single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) capturing variation across individuals. This study aimed to 1) determine whether an inflammation polygenic risk score (iPRS) is associated with CRCI or CRF, 2) determine whether the relationship between the iPRS and CRCI or CRF is modified by exercise at the time of cancer treatment, 3) identify SNPs associated with serum cytokines measured at the time of cancer treatment, and 4) identify novel CRCI- and CRF-associated risk SNPs via genome-wide association analyses.

We found that there was a significant inverse correlation between the iPRS and change in fatigue score from pre-chemotherapy to post-chemotherapy while there was no statistically significant association between the iPRS and cognitive impairment score. The inverse relationship between the iPRS and fatigue may be explained in part by the finding that the iPRS was also significantly associated with greater pre-chemotherapy fatigue, suggesting that women with a genetic predisposition to low-grade systemic inflammation (i.e., high iPRS) have more fatigue at the time of breast cancer diagnosis and, therefore, are less likely to worsen over the course of treatment. In contrast, women with a low iPRS had significantly less fatigue pre-chemotherapy and a significant worsening of fatigue from pre- to post-chemotherapy. The relationship between the iPRS and fatigue remained after adjustment for patient and cancer treatment covariates and was most pronounced in women who reported regularly exercising for at least 6 months prior to starting their cancer treatment. Exploratory genome-wide analysis identified a novel risk locus on chromosome chr6q27, tagged by rs9365961, associated with CRCI. This locus is upstream of TBXT, which encodes an embryonic nuclear transcription factor previously associated with susceptibility to neural tube defects.

The genome-wide SNP data, patient-reported CRCI and CRF outcome measures, and covariate data used in this analysis are available through dbGaP.