Many breast cancer patients have raised concerns over chemotherapy drugs causing fogged mental condition, but new research says they are not linked to cognitive decline and memory loss.
Researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center have found that there is no link between the chemotherapy drug anthracycline and cognitive problems.
The anthracycline-based chemotherapy drugs used in treating breast cancer have been said to cause memory loss and cognitive decline or the so-called "chemo brain," but researchers revealed that anthracycline doesn't pose any mental problem for its users.
The researchers studied a wide database of breast cancer patients and divided the patients into three groups. In one group were those who received doses of anthracycline in their chemo sessions, another group were made up of patients who took non-anthracycline drugs for their chemotherapy and the last group were those who did not undergo any chemotherapy session.
The patients had undergone neuropsychological evaluations after their primary treatment schedule. The first evaluations were done within three months, the next at six months, the third at one year and the last at an average of 4.8 years after primary treatment. The neuropsychological evaluations tested the patients' memory, executive function and processing speed, or the brain's ability to focus, plan and multitask.
The researchers found that that the memory, executive function and processing speed did not differ among the three groups of breast cancer patients.
"Immediately following treatment, there wasn't any difference - we did not find any difference between groups. And also when we looked over time at the cognitive trajectory, it was the same across all three groups," said Kathleen Van Dyk, one of the study authors and a postdoctoral fellow of neuropsychology at UCLA.
She noted that memory problems after chemo sessions are a serious concern among breast cancer patients. This concern will soon have its answers as current ongoing research are focusing on looking at some contributory factors, such as psychological wellbeing and genetics, to cognitive decline as an effect of chemotherapy.
The study's authors also noted that the research results are contradictory to other studies that show the relationship of anthracycline to cognitive decline among breast cancer patients.
"In conclusion, in this study we could not find evidence to support the claim that anthracycline treatment confers greater risk of cognitive decline for breast cancer survivors," the researchers said.
The study was published in the journal JAMA Oncology.
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