# The Contribution of Systemic Inflammation to Neurocognitive Outcomes, Physiologic Frailty and Mortality in Cancer Survivors

> **NIH NIH F31** · JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY · 2021 · $28,865

## Abstract

Significance: There is growing concern about accelerated aging phenotypes and degenerative outcomes
among the rapidly increasing cancer survivor population in the United States. Neurocognitive disorders and
physiologic frailty are two highly debilitating complications of cancer survivorship that can persist several years
after cancer treatment, compromising quality of life in survivors. Given that adult cancer is a disease of aging,
that the older adult US population is expanding, and more than two-thirds of cancer survivors are >65 years old,
cancer survivors will constitute an increasing proportion of the rapidly aging population. If survivors experience
earlier and greater cognitive decline, incident dementia and frailty than their counterparts who have no history of
cancer, the cost of caring for the elderly in the US will increase tremendously, with enormous implications for
healthcare service delivery. Evidence supports that aberrant inflammation resulting in altered circulating
inflammatory protein profiles is one pathophysiologic mechanism underlying neurocognitive disorders and many
adverse health conditions in cancer survivors. But current studies examining the role of inflammation in these
outcomes are either limited to breast cancer, cross-sectional, based on clinic cohorts, include few inflammatory
proteins or have short duration of follow-up. These limitations can be overcome by prospective population-based
studies of survivors of different cancers, that assay a large array of inflammatory proteins at multiple visits over
time. Specific Aims: We aim to use data from 633 ≥5 year survivors of prostate, breast, colorectal, endometrial
and bladder cancers and 5323 cancer-free individuals who attended visit 5 in 2011-2013, in the Atherosclerosis
Risk in Communities (ARIC) study to: 1) Determine if higher levels of systemic inflammation are associated with
neurocognitive outcomes (cognitive decline and incident dementia) in survivors (>65 years of age) in the U.S.;
2) Determine if higher levels of systemic inflammation are associated with physiologic frailty in the cancer
survivors (>65 years of age) in the U.S.; and 3) Determine if higher levels systemic inflammation are associated
with mortality from causes other than their cancer in the cancer survivors (>65 years of age) in the U.S.
Approach: Aim 1 will develop a proteomics inflammatory measure and use linear regression models and Cox
proportional hazard models to evaluate the association of higher systemic inflammation with the risk of cognitive
decline and incident dementia respectively in cancer survivors. Aim 2 will use multinomial regression to evaluate
the association of higher systemic inflammation with physiologic frailty in cancer survivors. Aim 3 will use Cox
hazard models to examine the association of higher systemic inflammation with mortality from non-cancer
causes among cancer survivors. Fellowship Information: Through a combination of coursework, professional
skills dev...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10076546
- **Project number:** 5F31CA246855-02
- **Recipient organization:** JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Chinenye Ugoji
- **Activity code:** F31 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $28,865
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2020-01-01 → 2021-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10076546

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10076546, The Contribution of Systemic Inflammation to Neurocognitive Outcomes, Physiologic Frailty and Mortality in Cancer Survivors (5F31CA246855-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10076546. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*