Residuals in post-chemotherapy, non-depressed patients with leukemia that is in remission

Debate persists regarding the occurrence and etiology of neurocognitive deficits associated with the utilization of chemotherapeutic agents, commonly referred to as “chemobrain”. While some have previously attributed these features to other factors such as fatigue, emotional reactivity, etc., growing literature suggests that in fact chemotherapeutic agents may be the cause. Although research has investigated these deficits, greater investigation is warranted. The current study investigated the presence of residual neurocognitive deficits in non-depressed patients post-chemotherapy with a history of leukemia that was in remission in comparison to healthy controls. Methods: participants included 16 individuals with a history of leukemia post-chemotherapy, in remission and without depression and 48 healthy controls. Participants were assessed using the WJ-III with data from the first seven subtests entered for analysis. A multivariate analysis of variance revealed significant differences existed between groups. By way of a discriminant function analysis, subtest/domain specific discrepancies were noted. Specifically, participants with a history of leukemia who were post-chemotherapy and without depression were found to perform significantly worse on visual-auditory learning, concept formations, and sound blending than did healthy controls. Findings are seen as additional support of the idea that neurocognitive deficits do in fact occur following chemotherapy. However, they are particularly of interest as they are seen even in the absence of emotional distress and outside the active treatment phase. Additional findings of importance and clinical relevance will be discussed.