Effect of Cancer On Brain Development
Research shows that children with cancer are at risk for developing various cognitive or learning problems. These difficulties may be related to brain injury stemming from the cancer itself, such as a brain tumor or central nervous system metastasis or from side effects of cancer treatments such as chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Studies have shown that chemo and radiation therapies may damage brain white matter and disrupt brain activity.
Cognitive problems that have been associated with cancer and its treatments in children include deficits in attention, working memory, processing speed, mental flexibility, persistence, verbal fluency, memory, motor skills, academic achievement and social function. These deficits have been shown to occur irrespective of age, socioeconomic status, months since onset or cessation of treatment, anxiety, fatigue and dosage schedule.
As survival among children treated for cancer continues to improve, more attention is being focussed on the late effects of cancer treatment. In children treated for brain tumours, chronic neurocognitive effects are especially challenging. Deficits in cognitive development have been described most thoroughly among children treated for posterior-fossa tumours, specifically medulloblastomas and ependymomas, which account for about 30% of all newly diagnosed cases of brain tumours in children. Most children who have survived brain tumours have required surgical resection and focal or craniospinal radiotherapy (irradiation of the entire subarachnoid volume of the brain and spine), with or without systemic chemotherapy. Historically, intelligence quotient (IQ) scores have provided a benchmark against which to measure changes in cognitive development after treatment. Observed declines in IQ are most likely a result of failure to learn at a rate that is appropriate for the age of the child, rather than from a loss of previously acquired knowledge. The rate of IQ decline is associated with a several risk factors, including younger age at time of treatment, longer time since treatment, female sex, as well as clinical variables such as hydrocephalus, use of radiotherapy and radiotherapy dose, and the volume of the brain that received treatment. Loss of cerebral white matter and failure to develop white matter at a rate appropriate to the developmental stage of the child could partly account for changes in IQ score. Technical advances in radiotherapy hold promise for lowering the frequency of neurocognitive sequelae. Further efforts to limit neurocognitive sequelae have included design of clinical trials to test the effectiveness of cognitive, behavioural, and pharmacological interventions.
Read more about this topic: Learning Problems In Childhood Cancer
Famous quotes containing the words effect of, effect, cancer, brain and/or development:
“To get time for civic work, for exercise, for neighborhood projects, reading or meditation, or just plain time to themselves, mothers need to hold out against the fairly recent but surprisingly entrenched myth that “good mothers” are constantly with their children. They will have to speak out at last about the demoralizing effect of spending day after day with small children, no matter how much they love them.”
—Wendy Coppedge Sanford. Ourselves and Our Children, by Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, introduction (1978)
“The poem has a social effect of some kind whether or not the poet wills it to have. It has kinetic force, it sets in motion ... [ellipsis in source] elements in the reader that would otherwise be stagnant.”
—Denise Levertov (b. 1923)
“The truth is that Mozart, Pascal, Boolean algebra, Shakespeare, parliamentary government, baroque churches, Newton, the emancipation of women, Kant, Marx, and Balanchine ballets don’t redeem what this particular civilization has wrought upon the world. The white race is the cancer of human history.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“I recently learned something quite interesting about video games. Many young people have developed incredible hand, eye, and brain coordination in playing these games. The air force believes these kids will be our outstanding pilots should they fly our jets.”
—Ronald Reagan (b. 1911)
“Other nations have tried to check ... the fulfillment of our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.”
—John Louis O’Sullivan (1813–1895)