In the largest study of its kind ever conducted, researchers have determined that almost half of all bowel cancer survivors suffer memory loss and have trouble multitasking and concentrating because of the disease.
The University of Sydney researchers believe the results hold true for people with many cancers and has nothing to do with chemotherapy.
“It’s often after they get back to work they notice it and in particular what they complain about is problems with multitasking,” said Janette Vardy, Associate Professor of Cancer Medicine at the University of Sydney.
She and her team set out to find out just how many cancer patients were experiencing these cognitive lapses.
They measured hundreds of colorectal, or bowel cancer, patients against healthy controls.
“So what we found to our great surprise was that there was great high rates cognitive impairment before people had received any chemotherapy whatsoever,” she said.
“So what we found was that in those that had localised colorectal cancer, so 43 per cent of those had cognitive impairment based on our definition, compared to only 15 per cent of the healthy controls.”
Even a year later, when there was no trace of bowel cancer in the patient’s bodies, they were still three times more likely to have issues with things like memory and concentration than healthy people.
Chemotherapy patients no worse off
Associate Professor Vardy’s research team found patients who received chemotherapy were no worse off.
“We were expecting the cancer patients who had received chemotherapy to have more cognitive impairment than those who did not go on to receive chemotherapy, but in fact there was very little difference between the two cancer groups with localised disease.
“So the nickname that’s been given of ‘chemo brain’ is not very accurate and it’s probably something more like a ‘cancer brain’.”
The paper, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, focused on bowel cancer, but researchers believe the results would be similar for many cancers.
The researchers did not find what caused the decline in cognitive ability.
Co-author Dr Haryana Dhillon said that made treatment a challenge.
“It’s a little bit difficult for us to give solid advice about this, but on the basis of some of the work that’s been done in other areas, and in particular in animals studies, which is probably that physical activity is something that can potentially help to preserve and protect cognitive function in cancer patients and cancer survivors.
“And there’s a possibility that some brain training exercises might help as well.”
This study shows cognitive impairment in bowel cancer patients last for at least two years after diagnosis.
Whether the concentration and memory lapses continue beyond that will be the focus of follow up research.