FOLLOW-UP OF COGNITIVE-FUNCTIONING IN PATIENTS WITH SMALL-CELL LUNG-CANCER

Purpose: Study of the course of possible treatment-related cognitive i mpairment in patients with small cell lung cancer, Methods and Materia ls: Thirty-two consecutive patients with small cell lung cancer underw ent successive neurologic and neuropsychologic examinations until 5 mo nths after prophylactic cranial irradiation, and in their pretherapeut ic condition were compared to matched controls, Patients with brain me tastases were excluded from this study, Results: Neurologic examinatio n revealed central nervous system (CNS) abnormalities only in the 14 p atients with brain metastases, In the remaining patients, neuropsychol ogic tests showed clear differences between the pretherapeutic perform ance of patients and that of matched controls (p < 0.001), but no sign ificant deterioration either during or after therapy (0.1 < p < 0.8), Conclusion: The difference between the pretherapeutic performance of p atients and that of matched controls may indicate disease-related cogn itive impairment. Within the observation period, no adverse effects of the used therapy were found, Our observations underline the importanc e of a pretherapeutic assessment in neurotoxicity research.