We spend around one third of our lives sleeping and a good night of sleep is critical for many important functions such as learning and memory, brain energy and plasticity, and immune functioning. Furthermore, inadequate sleep and insomnia are linked to numerous illnesses detrimental for metabolic and cardiovascular health. Cancer patients have long been complaining about insomnia, with a high reported prevalence both before, during and after systemic treatments. Furthermore, there is emerging evidence of circadian disruption following cancer treatments, which may underlie and exacerbate commonly reported symptoms of depressed mood, fatigue, cognitive complaints and sleep disturbances. Despite the important role of sleep on mental and physical health, until recently, sleep disturbances following cancer and its treatment were often neglected by both clinicians and researchers. Only a few published studies have investigated how insomnia and circadian disruption may impact quality of life issues, including cognitive impairment, anxio-depressives factors, and fatigue.
The aim of this special issue will be to elucidate the impact of sleep and circadian rhythms disturbances associated with cancer and its treatments on quality of life and survivorship issues.
We thus welcome submission to reviews, original articles, as well as methodological papers contributing to this topic.
More specifically, sub-topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
- sleep disturbances in non-CNS cancer patients as evidenced by self-reported outcome measures, as well as objective sleep assessment (e.g. polysomnography) and possible associations with cancer- and treatment-specific factors.
- circadian rhythms modifications using both behavioural and physiological measures and possible associations with cancer- and treatment-specific factors.
- impact of sleep disturbances on quality of life, including cognition, anxio-depressive factors and fatigue in non-CNS cancer patients
- impact of circadian disruptions on quality of life, including cognition, anxio-depressive factors and fatigue in non-CNS cancer patients
- treatments of sleep disturbances and circadian disruption in non-CNS cancer patients.
- guidelines for methodological and treatment approaches in non-CNS cancer patients
- theorical papers dedicated to model the impact of sleep and circadian disruption on quality of life in non-CNS cancer patients