Effect of radiotherapy on cognitive functioning in nasopharyngeal carcinoma

Shanmukhi S, Thomas P. Ninan

Pdf Page Numbers :- 114-119

Shanmukhi S^1,* and Thomas P. Ninan²

¹Department of Neurology, Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences, Minister Road, Secunderabad - 500003, Telangana, India

²Department of Psychology, Madras University, Chennai, India

*Corresponding author: Dr. S. Shanmukhi, Clinical Psychologist, Department of Neurology, Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences, Minister Road, Secunderabad - 500003, Telangana, India. Mobile: 9885077749; Email: shanmuki@yahoo.com.

Received 16 April 2015; Revised 25 May 2015; Accepted 3 June 2015; Published 10 June 2015

Citation: Shanmukhi S, Thomas PN. Effect of radiotherapy on cognitive functioning in nasopharyngeal carcinoma. J Med Sci Res. 2015; 3(3):114-119. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17727/JMSR.2015/3-022

Copyright: © 2015 Shanmukhi S, et al. Published by KIMS Foundation and Research Center. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

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Abstract

Background: Radiotherapy is used in the treatment of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). The temporal lobes are at risk because they lie directly in the path of radiation beams; hence the effect of radiotherapy on cognitive functioning is a major concern.

Aims: To investigate the effect of radiotherapy on cognitive functioning in nasophyingeal carcinoma patients.

Materials & methods: A battery of neuropsychological tests consisting of attention, memory & learning and visuospatial functions was done on 20 patients before and after radiation therapy. Also computerized tomography (CT) was done in all cases. The results showed significant impairment in attention (p=0.0001), verbal fluency (p=0.05), visuospatial functions (p=0.005), and learning & memory.

Conclusions: Radiotherapy for nasopharyngeal carcinoma shows significant decline on cognitive functioning.

Keywords: nasopharyngeal; carcinoma; radiotherapy; cognitive deficits; memory; attention; visuospatial