Abstract

MARTINEZ-TRIANA, Raúl; GUERRA-GONZALEZ, Eva María  and  GONZALEZ-OTERO, Alejandro. Neurocognitive disfunction in children with acute lymphoid leukemia. Rev Cubana Hematol Inmunol Hemoter [online]. 2013, vol.29, n.1, pp. 73-81. ISSN 0864-0289.

Introduction: neurocognitive disorders have been reported as long-term side effects in patients free from acute lymphoid leukemia that had undergone radiotherapy. These disorders have been likewise reported in those cases in which the patients had undergone chemotherapy. No antecedents about previous study on the latter in Cuba are known. Methods: the intellectual performance of 77 patients who did not undergo radiotherapy during their treatment, ages between 6 and 32 years old, was studied (54 of them under treatment and 23 had survived for more than 5 years); and the intellectual performance of a group of healthy teenagers (n=20). The Wechsler intelligence scales for children (WISC) and for adults (WAIS) were used. Results: the results showed that the Intelligence Quotient of the sick patients and of those already recovered was among standard parameters. However, the recovered patients obtained results significantly lower than those of healthy patients in the Similarity, Digit, Figures Arrangement and Design of Blocks subtests, as well as in the distractibility factor. The patients that were ill during the tests obtained lower results than the healthy ones only in the Digit subtest. Conclusions: these results suggest the presence of specific subclinical disorders related to the capacity of associating verbal concepts, short-term memory, capacity of strategic planning, visualspatial organization, analysis and synthesis such as thinking processes as well as an attention difficulty in recovered patients as a result of chemotherapy.

Keywords : acute lymphoid leukemia; cancer; cognition; psychology; neurocognition; intelligence; intellectual performance.

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