Circadian Activity Rhythms and Fatigue of Adolescent Cancer Survivors and Healthy Controls: A Pilot Study.

Circadian Activity Rhythms and Fatigue of Adolescent Cancer Survivors and Healthy Controls: A Pilot Study.:

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Circadian Activity Rhythms and Fatigue of Adolescent Cancer Survivors and Healthy Controls: A Pilot Study.

J Clin Sleep Med. 2020 Apr 08;:

Authors: Rogers VE, Mowbray C, Zhu S, Liu L, Ancoli-Israel S, Barr EA, Hinds PS

Abstract

STUDY OBJECTIVES: The primary objective of this study was to compare circadian activity rhythms (CARs) of adolescents within five years of completing cancer treatment (survivors) and healthy adolescent controls. Secondary objectives were to explore differences in the relationship of CARs and fatigue between survivors and controls, and between early survivors (<12 months post-treatment) and late survivors (≥12 months post-treatment).

METHODS: Twenty-nine survivors and 30 controls, aged 13-18 years, participated in this prospective, descriptive pilot study. Adolescents and their parent completed a baseline measure of adolescent's fatigue. Adolescents wore a wrist actigraph continuously for seven days and concurrently kept a sleep diary. Activity data recorded by actigraphy were fitted to an extended cosine model to calculate six CAR variables: acrophase, amplitude, MESOR, up-MESOR, down-MESOR and F-statistic. Linear mixed models explored the relationship between CARs and fatigue.

RESULTS: There were no group differences on CAR or fatigue measures. Among survivors, earlier down-MESOR was associated with higher parent-reported fatigue (p=0.020), and earlier acrophase (p=0.023) and up-MESOR (p=0.025) were associated with higher adolescent-reported fatigue. Significant CAR-by-time post-treatment interaction effects were found on fatigue between early and late survivors. Among controls, higher parent-reported fatigue was associated with higher MESOR (p=0.0495).

CONCLUSIONS: Survivors within the first five years post-treatment were similar to controls on CARs and fatigue, suggesting robust recovery of circadian rhythms post-treatment. Different CAR characteristics were associated with fatigue between survivors and controls. Time post-treatment influenced the relationship between CARs and fatigue for survivors, with significant effects only for early survivors.

PMID: 32267222 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]