Study of breast cancer patients suggests 'chemo brain' is real
Breast cancer patients who were treated with chemo in addition to radiation performed worse on tests of cognitive function than patients treated with surgery alone, according to a new study. (Chris Hondros/Getty Images)
By Karen Kaplan, Los Angeles Times / For the Booster Shots blog
November 14, 2011, 5:19 p.m.
Here’s new evidence that the condition known as “chemobrain” is real: A study of breast cancer patients finds that women who had chemotherapy along with surgery to treat their disease had more trouble kicking their brains into high gear than women who were treated with surgery alone. They also performed much worse on tests of mental function than a group of healthy women who served as controls.
The study, published Monday in Archives of Neurology, included 25 breast cancer survivors who had surgery and chemotherapy, 19 breast cancer survivors who had surgery but no chemotherapy, and 18 women with no history of breast cancer who were picked because their ages, level of education and menopausal status were similar to those of the women who had chemo. All of the study volunteers were asked to solve a series of brain teasers while their brain activity was recorded by
an MRI machine. Volunteers also took a standardized test to measure their “executive function” and another test to assess how well they thought their brains were working.
The functional MRI results showed that areas of the brain involved in memory, planning and attention weren’t as active in the women who had chemo as in the other breast cancer survivors or the healthy controls
. The women in the chemo group took longer to recognize patterns in a card-sorting game administered by a computer. Worse still, “even though the chemotherapy-treated women took more time on this task, they still made more errors,” according to the study.
The results probably won’t come as a surprise to these women – in the tests used to assess how well they thought their own brains were functioning, the women who had chemo reported more problems with executive function tasks than women in the other two groups.
(The researchers also noticed some functional differences in the brains of breast cancer survivors who did not have chemo, but those differences didn’t seem to translate into problems with problem-solving tasks.) The findings suggest that chemotherapy may cause “neurotoxic brain injury,” the study authors wrote.
But it’s also possible that the disease itself may be responsible. After all, the women who got chemo tended to be diagnosed with more advanced cases of breast cancer than the women who were treated with surgery alone. Teasing apart whether the aggressiveness of the cancer or the chemo used to fight it is more to blame will take further study, the authors wrote.
A summary of the study is available here.
It is very real. I just hope it is reversible, at least to some degree. I can definitely tell I have an impaired cognition since chemo and it is quite frustrating.
Try B Vitamins......
ReplyDeleteI am taking a number of supplements to try and reverse the damage done by the poisons they use. It doesn't help that I am taking a hormone blocking pill that has some brain side effects as well. It is really disturbing. When I was in college, I was dubbed "Miss Photographic Memory". Well, my camera is definitely broken these days.
ReplyDeleteThis may be a very real side affect of the cancer treatment. Drastic cures for Drastic diseases often produce lasting side affects.
ReplyDeleteIs one better off with reduced cognitive performance and reduced chance of cancer... or a greater chance of cancer so they can think and work faster?
Myself... if I had to go through it once... I'd rather make sure it was the only time I had to do it, regardless of the outcome. The second, and perhaps, the third time would only take a greater tole on the body and mind.
My mother is a two time cancer survivor. I don't know the exact nature of the treatment, but I know she is missing several organs that normal people still have. One of them is a kidney. She is now a diabetic, and having only one kidney in that situation is of some concern.
There are only so many things the doctors can take out of you before you don't live anymore.
Deb..you always seems pretty sharp to me.........what about that Ginko biloba? maybe that will help
ReplyDelete@ scifi...it is very much a side effect of the chemo. In particular, the drug Taxotere. One of the (many) potential side effect of this particular drug is peripheral nerve damage. It can be so severe that treatment with the drug may have to be stopped. It can cause peripheral neuropathy - pin and needles and burning pain - and these particular side effects may not manifest until after the treatment is finished. The odds of having peripheral neuropathy after treatment are pretty low if it didn't happen with treatment. If it occurs with treatment, it may be permanent. It makes sense to me that any toxin that can cause peripheral nerve damage can damage central nervous system tissue as well. There are several chemo agents that can do this, but not all of them are neurotoxic. It does seem that chemo for breast cancer is particularly associated with chemo brain.
ReplyDeleteGod bless your Mom!! I certainly hope I never have to do this again and, considering how rough some I know have had it, I got off pretty easy. Humans were built with a lot of extra capacity, as it were. We can lose a lot of function before it really begins to affect us. Kidney function, for example, will test as normal as long as we have greater than 30% of function. It is worrisome, though, with diabetes since it can really damage renal function.
@Michael...Thanks. But I can really tell that it has affected me. The study cited in the article showed a very specific part of the brain that seemed to be affected. The deficits they described are what I am experiencing. Its bad enough, but when you add the fogginess from the hormone blocker, it's even worse. My memory has definitely suffered. Both verbal recall and my ability to do algebra are affected. I couldn't help someone the other day with an equation (for the ideal gas law) that was my bread and butter for 20 years in respiratory care! I used to be able to calcs based on that equation in my sleep! It has really bothered my recently while I tried to do some simple crochet for some Christmas gifts. I am so easily distracted I have a hard time just counting my stitches. I am not sure ginko would do much. I am taking herbals and vitamins specifically for decreasing inflammation and scavenging free radicals. I guess time will tell how much is permanent and how much is reversible.
ReplyDelete