Some breast cancer survivors may have cognition issues several years after treatment, whether they had chemotherapy or radiation, U.S. researchers say.
Study leader Paul Jacobsen of the Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute in Tampa, Fla., and colleagues examined 62 breast cancer patients treated with chemotherapy plus radiation, 67 patients treated with radiation only, and 184 women with no history of cancer.
Participants of the study completed neuropsychological assessments six months after completing treatment and again 36 months later, UPI.com reported.
Published online ahead of print in the journal Cancer, the study confirmed that chemotherapy can cause cognitive problems in breast cancer survivors that persist for three years after they finish treatment.
The study also found that breast cancer survivors who went through radiation treatment, and not chemotherapy, often experienced similar problems.
The study did not find that hormonal therapy caused cognitive difficulties.
"These findings suggest that the problems some breast cancer survivors have with their mental abilities are not due just to the administration of chemotherapy," UPI quoted Jacobsen as saying in a statement.
"Our findings also provide a more complete picture of the impact of cancer treatment on mental abilities than studies that did not follow patients as long or look at mental abilities in breast cancer survivors who had not been treated with chemotherapy."
