Table 3.

PCI related adverse events and QOL results of included studies.

Study	PCI related toxicities	Neuropsychological tests and results	QOL instruments and results
MDACC	Acute toxicitiy: one patient develped transient memory loss for 2.5 weeks Late toxicity: none	Not reported	Not reported
RTOG 8403	Acute toxicity: epilation and skin reactions Late toxicity: none	Not reported	Not reported
SWOG	Not reported	No excessive neurological toxicity with PCI, but the definition of neurological toxicity was not stated	Not reported
RTOG 0214	Acute toxicity: constitutional (grade 1–2), gastrointestinal (grade 1), dermatologic (grade 2), fatigue (grade 3), ataxia (grade 3), dyspnea (grade 3), depression (grade 3–4), hematologic (grade 3), pain (grade 3) Late toxicity: grade 3 dyspnea, syncope, weakness, fatigue and soft tissue necrosis	MMSE, HVLT, and ADLS No significant differences in global cognitive function (MMSE), but there was a significant decline in memory (HVLT) at 1 year	EORTC QLQ-C30 + BN20 No significant differences in QOL after PCI
Li	Acute toxicity: headache (grade 1–2, 26%; grade 3, 1%), nausea or vomiting (grade 1–2, 23%), fatigue (grade 1–2, 13%; grade 3, 2%), skin toxicity (grade 1–2, 5%), insomnia (grade 2, 2%) Late toxicity: mild headache/slight lethargy (22.2%), moderate headache/great lethargy (11.1%), severe heacache (2.5%); grade 3 skin strophy (1%), grade 3 fatigue (1%)	Not reported	FACT-L questionaire No significant differences were noted in deterioration rate for QOL and symptoms between the two groups
NVALT-11	Alopecia, gatigue, headache	CTCAE 3.0 Memory impairment (grade 1–2) and cognitive disturbance (grade 1–2)	EORTC QLQ-C30 + BN20 and EuroQoL 5D At 3 months after PCI, QOL was worse in the PCI arm. At 6–18 months, QOL was simialr between both arms. At 24–48 months, there was a slight and non-significant advantage in QOL in the observation arm