{"id":226462,"date":"2025-03-12T07:05:08","date_gmt":"2025-03-12T11:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=226462"},"modified":"2025-09-16T14:42:30","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T18:42:30","slug":"crisp-award-funds-study-on-immunotherapys-impact-on-cognitive-function","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2025\/03\/crisp-award-funds-study-on-immunotherapys-impact-on-cognitive-function\/","title":{"rendered":"CRISP Award Funds Study on Immunotherapy\u2019s Impact on Cognitive Function"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the past decade, immunotherapy has been gaining popularity as a treatment for many kinds of cancer, giving patients another option besides chemotherapy and radiation. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Immunotherapy boosts a person\u2019s own immune system to identify and fight cancer cells that normally evade its defenses.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However, like traditional cancer treatments, immunotherapy may cause or exacerbate cognitive decline, especially in older adults. Because this treatment is much newer than chemotherapy or radiation, these potential side effects have not yet been widely studied.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Gee Su Yang, assistant professor at the UConn School of Nursing, has received a $60,000 CRISP (Clinical Research Innovation Seed Program) Award from the Office of the Vice President for Research to conduct a pilot study of how immunotherapy impacts cognitive function in older cancer patients.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>Research on the impact of immunotherapy on cognitive function is <\/span>limited<\/span>,\u201d Yang says. <\/span>\u201c<\/span>We don\u2019t know just how immunotherapy affects their cognitive function<\/span>. <\/span>So, I hope to provide some preliminary evidence.\u201d <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Yang <\/span>will<\/span> collaborat<\/span>e<\/span> with Dr. Upendra Hedge at the Carole and Ray Neag Comprehensive Cancer Center at UConn Health<\/span>, Dr. Breno Diniz <\/span>at t<\/span>he <\/span>UConn Center on Aging<\/span>, and<\/span> Professors Nancy Redeker and Keith Bellizzi <\/span>at <\/span>UConn Storrs<\/span> for this study.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yang is working with a population of 24 men and women over the age of 60 with cancer. The group will contain both those receiving immunotherapy treatment<\/span>, <\/span>specifically <\/span>immune checkpoint inhibitors<\/span>,<\/span> and those with the same cancer stage and type who are not, as a control group. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Immune checkpoint inhibitors are a type of immunotherapy treatment that<\/span> blocks the checkpoints on T-cells<\/span>, a critical part of the body\u2019s immune system. These checkpoints<\/span> tell the cells to stay turned \u201coff\u201d when the<\/span>re isn\u2019t anything to attack<\/span>, protecting healthy cells<\/span>. <\/span>But c<\/span>ancer cells<\/span> can <\/span>attach to these checkpoints and keep them off. By blocking the checkpoint, this immunotherapy treatment enables the T-cells to fight<\/span>\u00a0cancer cells. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This group will contain patients with <\/span>melanoma<\/span>, head and neck cancer,<\/span> or other solid tumors<\/span>, a critical consideration as much previous research on cancer-related cognitive impairment (CRCI) has been limited to breast cancer survivors.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>Generating data on<\/span> the cognitive health of<\/span> patients receiving immunotherapy, and particularly in cancers other than breast cancer, will advance the field,\u201d Yang says.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Yang will use objective and subjective measures to assess the cognitive functioning of patients receiving immunotherapy and the control group before and then three months later during treatment.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI want to examine longitudinal changes in cognitive function as well as <\/span>frailty, comorbidities, comorbid symptoms, <\/span>and <\/span>genetic and neurodegenerative <\/span>disease <\/span>factors that predict cognitive changes among older adults with cancer,\u201d Yang says.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Yang will take blood samples from participants to check for certain known biomarkers associated with Alzheimer\u2019s and other neurodegenerative diseases.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Yang will also screen for the <\/span>APOE4<\/span> genotype.<\/span>\u00a0This <\/span>variant<\/span> has been associated with cognitive function decline in people with cancer.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI want to see how this genetic information could provide some prediction of cognitive changes since we know this genotype has a significant association with cognitive impairment in cancer patients,\u201d Yang says. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>As a registered nurse, Yang is interested in how this research can translate to individualized patient care.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>\u201cI think understanding how immunotherapy can affect the cognitive performance of older patients may aid in tailoring their treatment strategy and the development of a more comprehensive support plan<\/span> for<\/span> treatment decisions and potential interventions to preserve<\/span> or mitigate the impact of immunotherapy on cognitive well-being<\/span>,\u201d Yang says. \u201cI really want my study to be helpful and beneficial in improving patients\u2019 cancer survivorship and contribute to improving their quality of life.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This research by Gee Su Yang will evaluate how immunotherapy treatment may impact cognitive functioning in older cancer patients<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":147,"featured_media":226463,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2230,1877,2460,2231,2648,2076,1868,2235,179],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2277],"class_list":["post-226462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cancer","category-nur","category-faculty","category-health-well-being","category-blue-research","category-research","category-meds","category-today-homepage","category-uconn-health"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-12 16:13:26","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/147"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226462"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":226546,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226462\/revisions\/226546"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/226463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226462"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=226462"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=226462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}