PILOT NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL FINDINGS FROM A TREATMENT REGIMEN CONSISTINGOF INTENSIVE CHEMOTHERAPY AND BONE-MARROW RESCUE FOR YOUNG-CHILDREN WITH NEWLY-DIAGNOSED MALIGNANT BRAIN-TUMORS

Ten children (6 girls and 4 boys) who completed a protocol in which th eir localized brain tumors were successfully treated without cranial i rradiation were referred for neuropsychological assessment. At the tim e of testing, they were disease free without any neuroaxis disseminati on or leptomeningeal disease. Tumor types included pineoblastoma, glio blastoma, ependymoma, PNET and medulloblastoma. They had a mean age of 5 years and 8 months (SD = 1.86; range = 2.1-8.9 years) and were an a verage of 37.8 months post bone marrow transplant (SD = 16.42; range = 14-58 months). Neuropsychological data from this study reveal that th e mean scores for this nonradiated group of children were within the a verage range for the following domains: academic achievement tests of reading, spelling and mathematics, verbal and visual memory, visual-mo tor integration, social-emotional and behavioral functioning. Furtherm ore, this group of children were performing within the low average ran ge of overall Intelligence, as well as both verbal IQ/verbal reasoning and performance IQ/abstract visual reasoning. On tasks of fine motor dexterity, this group was within the low average range when using thei r dominant hand; however, they performed within the borderline range w hen using their non-dominant hand. Of note, this group of children dem onstrated significant deficits within the borderline to impaired range s on language tasks of expressive picture naming and receptive picture vocabulary.