Neurocognitive functioning and quality of life in patients receiving radiotherapy for intracranial meningiomas. Systematic review

Abstract

This work is aimed at analyzing the neurocognitive functioning (NF) and the quality of life (QoL) of adult subjects with meningioma treated with primary and / or adjuvant radiotherapy.The following databases were searched: Academic Search Complete, CINAHL, Medline, Psychology Database, PsycInfo, PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science, from January 2020 to June 2021. 11 out of the 1992 articles initially identified met the inclusion criteria. An own registry protocol was applied to encode works features and quality of studies and journals where articles were published was evaluated via a self-made scale based on previously validated instruments. The results indicate that most of the studies that assessed NF did not show changes in various cognitive domains after the end of primary and / or adjuvant radiotherapy, nor in the follow-up period: 3, 6, and 12 months after the end of treatment. However, those that assessed QoL did observed a deterioration after the end of therapy, but an improvement during the follow-up: 3, 6, and 12 months after the end of treatment. In general, adult patients suffering from meningioma perform well in the long term (up to 12 months) after primary and / or adjuvant therapy, both in NF and QoL. Future research is necessary to study more deeply this scope of work since the results to date are heterogeneous.