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BY OUR PHARMA CORRESPONDENT 30
April,2007: New researches suggest that
patients undergoing chemo sessions—the life saving
treatment for cancer—can experience difficulties
with their cognitive functions.
In contrast to earlier approach wherein
physicians often rubbished symptoms including
short-term memory loss, an inability to
concentrate, difficulty retrieving words following
chemo session as figments of imagination, there is
now a widespread acknowledgment that patients with
cognitive symptoms are not imagining things.
Oncologists also are offering remedies, including
stimulants commonly used for attention-deficit
disorder and acupuncture.
Virtually all cancer survivors who have had
toxic treatments like chemotherapy experience
short-term memory loss and difficulty
concentrating during and shortly afterward,
experts say. But a vast majority improve. About 15
percent, or roughly 360,000 of the nation’s 2.4
million female breast cancer survivors, the group
that has dominated research on cognitive side
effects, remain distracted years later, according
to some experts. And nobody knows what
distinguishes this 15 percent, according to
reports.
There is a concensus that the culprits include
very high doses of chemotherapy, like those in
anticipation of a bone marrow transplant; the
combination of chemotherapy and supplementary
hormonal treatments, like tamoxifen or aromatase
inhibitors that lower the amount of estrogen in
women who have cancers fueled by female hormones.
However, some researchers are of opinion that
studies have been too small and lacked adequate
baseline data to isolate a cause.
“So many factors affect cognitive function, and
the kinds of cognitive problems associated with
cancer treatment can be caused by many other
things than chemotherapy,” said Dr. Ahles, the
director of neurocognitive research at Memorial
Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.
BY OUR PHARMA CORRESPONDENT |
