Associated
Press March 29, 2000 TAMPA -- Ordinary doses of chemotherapy sometimes
appear to permanently dull cancer patients' intellectual powers, leaving them
with poor memories, muddy thinking and inability to do math in their heads, new
research suggests.
Cancer patients often complain of "chemobrain," or
woolly headedness during treatment. While they are typically reassured this will
go away, little attempt has been made, until now, to see if these subtle
problems linger years later.
The new study, conducted at Dartmouth
Medical School, found that people who get standard chemotherapy appear to be
about twice as likely as other cancer patients to score poorly on various
intelligence tests an average of 10 years after their treatment.
Doctors
say the findings suggest that aggressive treatment with chemotherapy may be
unwise in some people with early-stage cancer unless the drugs can substantially
improve chances of survival.
Tim Ahles, a psychologist, presented the
results Tuesday at a meeting in Tampa of the American Cancer Society. He said
that while his is one of the first formal studies of the problem, the results
are unlikely to surprise many cancer patients.
Ahles said that when he
spoke recently about the findings at a meeting of cancer survivors, he worried
that his discouraging news would upset the audience. Instead, they seemed
relieved that scientists were finally taking seriously a complaint they had made
for years.
He said that many years after treatment, some cancer survivors
say they still have trouble remembering and concentrating. Some say they need a
calculator for math problems they once could have solved in their heads. Others
need to read a page twice to absorb what's being said.
"In talking to
someone, you'd never notice this," Ahles said. "But it is very relevant to
them."
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