Chemotherapy-induced cognitive impairment in hematological malignancies

Objectives: Chemotherapy-induced cognitive impairment (CICI) is one of the most prominent side effects as it negatively impacts activities of daily life of the affected role. These problems can range from subtle to severe and last for months or years after discourse. As cognition is an important predictor of survival in patients with hematological malignancy, savvy factors that lead to CICI in hematological malignancies warrant attention. Patients and methods: This is a cross-sectional discipline that was conducted at the Clinical Hematology Section in Ain Shams University Hospital during the period from March 2017 to September 2017. We studied the prevalence of cognitive deterioration among treated patients with chemotherapy for hematological malignancy, and we described its correlation to demographic data and risk agent. Test of cognitive function has been done by using Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA). Results: Out of 150 patients with different hematological malignancies who finished their chemotherapy at least 6 month ago, we found that 93 patient roles (62%) are cognitively impaired. The average score of Montreal test for all patient role was 23.913 ± 3.997. CICI is more among patient who received parenteral chemotherapies and closely related to premedication comorbidities, and all patients with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) were cognitively impaired. Also, there was a positive correlation between patient age and cognitive handicap as mean age of patients with abnormal cognitive function was 51.151 ± 9.933 (p value < 0.001) while period of hospital admission was showing significant correlation with impaired abstraction function (p value 0.003), and number of chemotherapy cycles showed significant correlation with naming and orientation cognitive impairment (p value 0.029 and 0.022, respectively). We found that female patients had significant shortcoming in naming ingredient more than male (p value 0.009). The type of chemotherapy regimen received did not significantly affected the overall cognitive impairment, but patients who had received Velcade-based chemotherapy had significantly lower executive and abstract function (p value 0.026). Patient roles which did not achieve remission at follow-up have markedly significant lower scores of most of the cognitive social function. Conclusion and recommendation: CICI is a major problem in patient role with hematological malignance post-chemotherapy that can affect their quality of life, so fixture follow-up of the cognitive functions in those patients for early interference with proper management of risk factor is recommended.