Table 2.

Effects of Being an Older Breast Cancer Survivor vs. Older Non-Cancer Control on Neurocognitive Tests of the Attention, Processing Speed and Executive Functioning (APE) Domain, and Mediation of Effects through Immune Activation/Inflammatory Pathways ¹

Immune Marker (per one unit change in natural log transformed pg/mL)	Survivor/control group effect on APE, independent of indirect effect on immune markers	Survivor/control group effect on immune marker	Immune marker effect on APE	Indirect effect of group on APE via immune marker (Mediation effect)	Survivor/control group effect on APE, controlling for indirect effect on immune markers
	βc (SE)2	βa (SE)	βb (SE)	βab (SE)	βc’ (SE)
IL-63	−.097 (.038)*	.218 (.049)***	−.106 (.036)**	−.023 (.009)**	−.074 (.039)+
IL-8	−.096 (.038)*	−.038 (.036)	−.063 (.068)	.002 (.003)	−.099 (.038)*
IL-10	−.095 (.038)*	−.107 (.055)*	−.100 (.034)**	.011 (.007)+	−.106 (.038)**
TNF-alpha	−.095 (.038)*	−.005 (.026)	−.171 (.063)**	.001 (.004)	−.096 (.038)*
IFN-gamma	−.097 (.038)*	−.013 (.042)	−.041 (.058)	.001 (.002)	−.097 (.038)*

SE=standard error; P values are indicated as follows:

⁺0.10> p >0.05,

^*p <0.05,

^**p <0.01,

^***p < 0.001.

^1.Results from 399 survivors and 328 (IL-10, TNF-alpha) or 329 (IL-6, IL-8, IFN-gamma) controls in multi-level mediation analyses controlling for age, racial/ethnic group (White, non-Hispanic vs. non-White), WRAT4 reading score, study site.

^2.Each β (SE) is labeled with a, b, ab, c or c’ based on the pathways shown on Figure 3.

^3.Note that result for the IL-6 mediation effect (βab) remains significant (p <0.01) if a Bonferroni correction for testing 5 markers (0.05/5=0.01) is applied. If cardiovascular comorbidities are added to the model, the beta for IL-6 mediation changes from 0.023 (SD 0.00) to 0.025 (SD 0.009) and remains significant at p=<0.01.