The association between cognitive functioning and health-related quality of life in low-grade glioma patients.

BACKGROUND: Glioma patients are not only confronted with the diagnosis and treatment of a brain tumor, but also with changes in cognitive and neurological functioning that can profoundly affect their daily lives. At present, little is known about the relationship between cognitive functioning and health-related quality of life (HRQOL) during the disease trajectory. We studied this association in low-grade glioma (LGG) patients with stable disease at an average of 6 years after diagnosis. METHODS: Patients and healthy controls underwent neuropsychological testing and completed self-report measures of generic (MOS SF36) and disease-specific (EORTC BN20) HRQOL. Associations were determined with Pearson correlations, and corrections for multiple testing were made. RESULTS: We analyzed data gathered from 190 LGG patients. Performance in all cognitive domains was positively associated with physical health (SF36 Physical Component Summary). Executive functioning, processing speed, working memory, and information processing were positively associated with mental health (SF36 Mental Component Summary). We found negative associations between a wide range of cognitive domains and disease-specific HRQOL scales. CONCLUSIONS: In stable LGG patients, poorer cognitive functioning is related to lower generic and disease-specific HRQOL. This confirms that cognitive assessment of LGG patients should not be done in isolation from assessment of its impact on HRQOL, both in clinical and in research settings.status: publishe

Assessing written work by determining competence to achieve the module-specific learning outcomes.

This chapter describes lasers and other sources of coherent light that operate in a wide wavelength range. First, the general principles for the generation of coherent continuous-wave and pulsed radiation are treated including the interaction of radiation with matter, the properties of optical resonators and their modes as well as such processes as Q-switching and mode-locking. The general introduction is followed by sections on numerous types of lasers, the emphasis being on todayʼs most important sources of coherent light, in particular on solid-state lasers and several types of gas lasers. An important part of the chapter is devoted to the generation of coherent radiation by nonlinear processes with optical parametric oscillators, difference- and sum-frequency generation, and high-order harmonics. Radiation in the extended ultraviolet (EUV) and x-ray ranges can be generated by free electron lasers (FEL) and advanced x-ray sources. Ultrahigh light intensities up to 1021 W/cm2 open the door to studies of relativistic laser–matter interaction and laser particle acceleration. The chapter closes with a section on laser stabilization