Profiles of chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy in breast cancer patients undergoing taxane-based chemotherapy: A latent class analysis

Purpose: This study aimed to identify the potential subgroups of chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) in breast cancer patients undergoing taxane-based chemotherapy and examine the association of the latent subtype with patient characteristics. Methods: This multi-center, cross-sectional investigation was conducted between April 2022 and March 2023. CIPN was evaluated using the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy/Gynecologic Oncology GroupNeurotoxicity scale. Latent class analysis was employed to identify distinct CIPN subgroups, and multinomial logistic regression was used to analyze the associations between these subgroups and patient characteristics. Results: In total, 397 individuals were categorized into three subgroups: high symptoms with high dysfunction (Class 1; 25.4%), moderate symptoms with low dysfunction (Class 2; 39.2%), and low symptoms with low dysfunction (Class 3; 35.3%). Taxane type, chemotherapy cycles, fatigue, beta-blocker use, and depression were significant predictors of the subgroups (P < .05). Conclusion: CIPN symptoms in breast cancer patients are heterogeneous. Significant factors for the latent subgroups included taxane type, chemotherapy cycles, beta-blocker use, fatigue, and depression. Identifying different subgroups of chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy would help develop interventions tailored to the patients.