Serum phosphatidylcholine is lower among breast cancer patients on systemic chemotherapy.

e12571Background: Chemotherapy-induced cognitive impairment, also known as 'chemobrain', is widely recognized as a frequent adverse effect of chemotherapy, occurs in 10-40% of all cancer patients. Those cancer survivorssuffer from poor concentration, memory, abstract reasoning, and motor dysfunction. The etiology is unclear. In our study, we analyzed the metabolitepanels in breast cancer patients with vs. without chemotherapy trying to identify metabolic mediators of neurologic injury. Methods: We obtained plasma sample from 18 breast cancer patients, 9 received chemotherapy prior to blood drawn; while the other 9 had no systemic therapy. The plasma samples were sent for mass spectroscopy. Each metaboliteslevel was normalized, and the two groups were compared in each metaboliteby t-test with statistical significance corrected for multiple comparisons using the Holm-Sidak method. Results: We identified 57 amines and their metabolites; 106 carbohydrate related metabolites, and 228 lipid molecules. While...