What is chemotherapy brain, or chemo brain?

Cancer patients may experience mental impairments before, during or after treatment. In oncology, this is called chemo brain. A study published in December 2016 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, a leading oncology journal, reported chemo brain as a common problem after treatment in breast cancer patients.

Chemo brain is described in several ways in medicine: cancer-treatment-related cognitive impairment, cancer-therapy-related cognitive changes and post-chemotherapy cognitive impairment.

Patients with chemo brain typically have concentration problems, difficulty remembering particular things, trouble completing tasks and difficulty learning new things.

Patients often find these cognitive (mental) changes difficult to describe. Their loved ones may not notice them either. Many patients do not mention the changes until they affect quality of life.

Although chemo brain is important for patients, exactly when and why it develops and who is at high risk remain unclear.

Study

The research included 581 women with breast cancer and 364 healthy women, comparing problems related to thinking and memory.

Participants’ mean age was 53. Researchers were particularly interested in how long problems lasted and which factors affected them.

According to the research results:

• Among breast cancer patients, % 45 had a decline in cognitive function before and after chemotherapy. Only %’10.4 of healthy individuals showed a decline over the same period.
• From before chemotherapy until month 6 after chemotherapy, % 36.5 of breast cancer patients showed a decline in cognitive function.
• Anxiety and depression before chemotherapy were also found to have a significant effect on cognitive function.
• Similar cognitive problems were seen in patients receiving hormone therapy or radiation treatment after chemotherapy.

Chemo brain is becoming an important problem for cancer patients. Research continues to clarify the biological relationship between cancer treatment and cognitive changes.

Another study whose results were published this year showed that an online learning program might prevent or reduce chemo brain. We plan to share that study in our next article.